


WORM FOOD

by spindlekiss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Draco Malfoy, Aurors, Child Abuse, Death, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Self-Esteem Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spindlekiss/pseuds/spindlekiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle is over, but Harry is still fighting.<br/>He's thanking his lucky stars that he learnt long ago how to properly ignore his problems.<br/>And Draco Malfoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kicking The Bucket

**WORM FOOD**

 

o O o

 

CHAPTER ONE- Kicking The Bucket

 

"Do you mind passing me a scalpel, Nott?" Harry asked as he leant over the flaccid penis of Musgrave Eliot and inspected an unusual wound by his groin. 

"Get it yourself." came Theo's absentminded reply, he too had been caught up in the suspenseful nature of this particular postmortem examination and was comparing contusions detailed in one of their reference journals to the bruises littered across the victims abdominal. 

"It doesn't make sense," Nott said, exhaustion seeping into his voice. "There's no magical trace on the body at all, which would usually indicate a muggle-styled murder, but there are absolutely no non-magical injuries being picked up by the scanning charm."

Harry sighed. "We're going to have to do it manually then, there can't just be _no_ cause of death, it's not possible."

 _"I could tell you what happened you know,"_ came the rattling voice that Harry had grown so accustomed to ignoring. _"Or, if you wanted, you could use your new magics and figure it out yourself..."_

"Tempting, but no." he muttered under his breathe.

"What was that?" inquired Theo. 

"Nothing. Nothing," he reassured, running a hand through his hair. "Just frustrated, and tired."

"Okay Potter, understandable. Just please stop talking to the bodies, it gives me the willies." 

Harry laughed despite himself. "The willies? Merlin Nott, are we in first year?"

"Oh shush, I distinctly remember hearing you use the phrase 'golly' not two days ago, so you've got nothing on me."

The brief conversation lapsed back into silence as they continued trying to puzzle out the cause of death. It was a muddle, that much was certain. Never before had it taken so long for them to figure out how the victim had come to die. They had been analysing the body of Musgrave Eliot and comparing evidence from the crime scene since the aurors brought it all in over eighteen hours ago. Both of them were near ready to collapse.

And they would have, had their pride as professionals not been depending on their success. 

Both Theo and Harry had been auror drop-outs who had seen massive gaps in the magical crime solving process and strove to fill them. They had both agreed that the auror department needed medical professionals on hand to stitch up injured staff, medical professionals who also had a greater understanding of investigative procedure and could help in the analysis of crime scenes by evaluating the bodies. Muggle's had police surgeons, so why shouldn't they? When they had brought their proposal to head auror Robard's, all idealistic and naive, they had almost been laughed out of the office. Except that a wager had been made.

"Alright boys, if you go and get proper qualified I'll let you do it, and I'll eat my badge." 

He had not anticipated that they actually would, and so when they returned triumphant to the department it was a legislative nightmare for them even to get their hands on evidence. Robards had conveniently forgotten about the badge part.

They had had to fight tooth and nail for every body they had examined, but their incredible success and their preparedness to patch up returning auror's on the go had endeared them to the office. And so it was that they were kept, fully supported even, once Draco Malfoy had been appointed head auror. At 26, he was the youngest department head ever, but he had been so successful that no one dared make a fuss about it. 

Harry certainly wasn't complaining. After Draco had been appointed he and Theo had gone from being used only in rare emergencies to being consulted on nearly every murder the British Wizarding Community faced. And somehow Malfoy had swung them an official examination room in the ministry basement just above the auror offices and officially made them into a 'sub department'. So yes, they were determined not to fail. 

Harry was snapped out of his thought's by Theo's loud groan and the ker-thunk of several books hitting the cherry wood floors at once.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I'm out Potter," he said, weariness colouring his tone. "I need to go home and get some sleep before I look like him." Theo gestured down at Musgrave. "I'll think better once I've had forty winks anyway."

"Alright, if you're leaving I might as well go home too. Is the stasis charm still in effect or will we have to renew it?" he asked.

"Should be fine, Musgrave won't start stinking until around nine tomorrow morning, and we'll both be here by then to keep the charm going."

Together they cleaned and packed the tools, carefully putting the equipment back into meticulously labelled drawers and cupboards. They took great care of the items they had accrued for the their beloved sub-department, the annual budget was minuscule and they couldn't afford to be irresponsible. 

 _"Your life would be so much simpler if you let me help you."_ came the voice. 

Harry said nothing, and pointedly didn't look in it's direction. He knew what he would see anyway, a great hulking dementor-esque figure, with a face like a black hole and moth-bitten robes that were faded around the edges, as if they only half-existed on this plane. Death had been literally following him around since Tom Riddle's defeat, Harry had been finely attuned to it's presence. But it had only started actually speaking to him once he began working the post-mortem cases with Theo. Encouraging him to use his powers to their fullest extent, what this fullest extent was exactly, Harry did not know.

Despite Death trying to tempt him with spectres and animations of his parents and loved one's, Harry refused. It was dark magic. And the spectres were not real, they were like magical paintings, all illusory, no substance. Or maybe like plastic flowers, pretty, but without perfume. It was only hard sometimes anyway, Harry had endured an entire childhood of having nice things dangled in front of his face only to be snatched away at the last second. He wasn't gullible, he knew exactly how the world worked, and how to resist it.

Suddenly there came a high buzzing noise, their alarm. Harry and Theo had installed an alarm their first hour in the room. It told them when someone was coming down the hall and gave them enough time to look both aggressively professional and sophisticated to the point of intimidation. They had a lot of people who opposed them, people who they refused to give an excuse to criticise them. So, just in case it was one of those people, Theo quickly threw Harry a book, which he opened and pretended to read. Meanwhile Theo got out a notepad and hastily began scrawling complex notes with numbers in them.

A knock came.

"Come in," called Theo.

The door opened to reveal their boss, Draco Malfoy.

He took one look at them and snorted. "Don't even try that with me, I'm not some beaurocratic dunce. And Potter, your book is upside down."

Harry looked at the book, it was. He felt his cheeks blush hotly. Death chortled a tinny laugh.

"What do you want Malfoy?" asked Theo somewhat cooly, he didn't have the best history with Malfoy. He'd been the butt of too many jokes in the slytherin common room to be fully okay with receiving orders from Malfoy now.

 "I'm glad you're both still here. We need a cause of death on the Eliot case." he said, voice carrying in the cool room. 

Theo and Harry looked at each other. 

"We don't have one." Harry eventually admitted.

It was more than a little embarrassing, Harry thought to himself as the silence rang out. Malfoy folded his arms and his disappointment was etched clearly into every line of his body, Harry tried to distract himself by staring at Musgrave's corpse. Sadly, nothing could divert him from Malfoy's dissatisfaction.

"I've put my reputation on the line for this so called sub department, and you can't provide something as simple as a cause of death?" he asked rhetorically.

Theo took it upon himself to answer anyway. "Look Malfoy, this is the first time we have so much as miss-stepped. You need to remember that half of your lauded success is down to this _so called sub department_ , and stop buying into your own press."

Harry groaned internally. They did not need to rile up their boss. Their boss who was in charge of them, and their budget. 

"You and Potter aren't leaving until we have results, so put you're lab-robes back on, you're both working over time tonight."

He felt a chill by his ear and had a premonition that Death was about to whisper something incredibly dramatic. _"I could take his life right now if you wanted. I could make it look like an accident."_

Harry shook his head minutely. Feigning obliviousness to the frozen fingers that caressed the back of his neck. He broke out into shivers. 

_"It would be so easy Harry... the blonde one has a freak heart attack and neither of you can do anything to save him. So sad. Or... something more creative..."_

Theo and Malfoy continued to argue in the background, but Harry was no longer focused.

_"Food poisoning, some strange allergic reaction, or-"_

"Go away!" he shouted, frustrated with the situation.

Malfoy and Theo stopped bickering to stare at him.

Harry felt dismay in the pit of his stomach. He was so sick of this. So sick of it. This was hardly the first problem Death had caused him he thought angrily, remembering Ginny.

"I beg your pardon Potter?" Malfoy said tartly, one eyebrow raised superciliously. 

"Nothing Malfoy," he said. "I just meant that, if you... left... we could, Theo and I, could get back to work."

Theo shot him a look that would have killed a lesser man.

"I'm sure Potter. And that's sir to you."

Was he for real? The expectant silence that rang out uncomfortably told Harry that he was. 

"Sir." he groused, tone sullen. The defiant seventeen year old inside of him was mortified, but his rational, adult side reminded him that Malfoy had grown up since Hogwarts, grown up into a respected ministry official who had direct authority over Harry's career in the department and who, on top of that, had come to cut something of an imposing figure; still slim, but leanly muscled and almost a head taller than Harry. Imposing figure indeed. 

He suddenly found himself regretting neglecting some of the physical training he had been required to do when he began his tutelage with the aurors. Now his preferred mode of exercise was morning runs which resulted in little more that the absence of fat. He wondered if he should start doing something that would help increase his muscle mass or something. Weights. Excessively macho boxing possibly.

"Alright. Get to it." Malfoy said, without moving.

"Look Malfoy, I don't know how you think we function down here, but it is not with supervision that's for sure." sassed Theo. 

Malfoy looked at him, unimpressed. 

They got to it.

Harry went about unpacking the drawers again whilst handing Theo the tools that they had been using so that he could set them up again. He did so passive aggressively, the care evident in his handling of their tools not five minutes ago was completely gone, replaced by the insolent slamming down of equipment. Harry knew it was all for show, Theo would never risk damaging anything. But really, the over enthusiastic scalpel sharpening was more than a little theatric. 

 _"I like this one,"_ said Death, amusement colouring his tone. _"Shows promise."_

Harry sighed, watching from the corner of his eye as Malfoy sat down on one of the benches as though he owned the place. He probably did. 

"We've been in this room for eighteen hours Malfoy, the least you could do is get us some coffee or something." Harry snapped.

Hello backbone, I missed you, he thought.

Surprisingly Malfoy listened to him. Removing his arse from Harry's preferred work bench with a sharp nod. "Alright, I'll be back soon though. And I'll be staying until you work it out." 

Malfoy left, and Harry couldn't believe that had worked at all.

They continued setting up in silence.

Loaded silence.

Harry exhaled in frustration.

"Alright, out with it."

Theo turned to him angrily. "You butthole. I can't believe you snapped at him like that. You're going to cost us this entire operation if you're not careful!"

Harry whirled around sharply. "Me, you were the one practically waging world war three against him!"

"That's different," justified Theo. "He doesn't give two figs what I have to say."

"Theo, as far as Malfoy's disparagement goes I a quite sure we are on equal terms. Actually, your ex-slytherin status might put you a few rungs better."

"Ex-slytherin? Slytherin is _for life_ you heathen." Theo riposted, the tools were once again laid out as they had been before, but Harry found that he would prefer to procrastinate with banter than set his tired mind once again to the impossible problem at hand. So that's what they do. For a good couple of minutes before they lapse once again into silence. 

"I am sorry though, I know you were looking forward to sleep, maybe if we-"

"Don't worry about it Potter," Theo said. Resting a hand on Harry's shoulder comfortingly. "It wouldn't have mattered if we had baked him a cake. I forgive you."

"That's rich" Harry replied. Kind of basking in the touch. He'd always liked physical affection in any form.

"Only because you're cute Potter, my forgiveness doesn't come-." 

They were suddenly interrupted by a cough, Malfoy and his imposing figure had returned with a tray of coffee. Harry searched his pockets for some galleons, but Draco refused them. Harry wondered if this was out of politeness or a desire to avoid something that had been inside of Harry's pocket.

He sipped on his beverage gratefully, and let the caffeine do it's holy work and wake him up. 

_"If you used your magic properly you could go home and rest young dodger, no worries in the world.... and your friend could sleep too..."_

'Shut up." Harry muttered, low enough that he went unheard by Theo and Malfoy.

 

 

 

An hour later and they were still no closer to figuring out the cause of death. All three of them had grown frustrated, but Malfoy had at least ceased his totalitarian routine, seeming to understand that the case was more complex than it had appeared at first glance. 

"Alright," Malfoy says. "So, Junior Aurors Parkinson and Wriggle were called in to Knockturn Alley around eleven a.m. They were met by a reportedly frantic Ophelia Basilton, who owns and runs Sugared Spice, a relatively popular bar. She took them up to a room where she showed them the body. Musgrave Eliot had been lifted up on to one of the beds and had a number of bruises across his chest," Malfoy paused and looked at the bruises. "He was definitely dead, so the body was photographed, then put under stasis and delivered here. But what happened before?" 

"Ask Wriggle or Parkinson, the leg work is their job." replied Theo with no small amount of snark. 

"I have. But there's just no information. No one knows why he was even in the Sugared Spice. He's hardly the type to associate with the plebs. Old Musgrave Eliot. His only association with Knockturn is that he owns half of it, but he owns half of Diagon as well and we haven't been able to make any connection. We don't know if it's murder. We don't know if it's natural causes. All we know is who he is and where he was found."

Malfoy had been growing increasingly impassioned as his speech went on, and thus it wasn't such a surprise when he jostled Harry with an overly dramatic gesture.

Harry hadn't expected it however, and the surgical knife in his hand slipped ever so slightly, he fumbled with it for a moment, before it dug awkwardly into his palm. 

Blood surged up and leaked through his glove, the synthetic material began to drip crimson, and Harry could feel it trickling slowly down his arm.

"Merlin!" Theo exclaimed. "Malfoy, you clumsy cluster-fuck look what you've done!"

Theo rushed around the bench and grabbed his hand. Carefully pulling back the glove. Harry wasn't quick enough to stop him or the sensory overload that came from touching a living being. He felt the almost soft slipping sensation that indicated a natural death. Old age. In his sleep. It was kind of like walking down the stairs in the dark, and forgetting a step. Well, that hadn't been utterly horrific, Harry thought. Though he could hear Death chortling with amusement somewhere behind him. 

Harry hadn't understood his new sensory awareness at first, had fooled himself into pretending it was paranoia or an overactive imagination. But when he had reached out and held Ginny's hand during Fred's funeral and felt a wave of pain in his stomach, had the image of a rounded stomach and blood, so much blood, forced into his mind like an explosion, he couldn't handle it. They'd broken up. Harry had thought he'd done the right thing, prevented Ginny from being poisoned by some death child he would give to her. Then she had gotten pregnant. By Dean Thomas. It was a difficult pregnancy and Harry had known. Had tried to explain it to her once. Only to be turned away.

"Harry," she had said. "It's okay, I'm happy and there's no need to worry."

She had been wrong. She had been so, so wrong. 

He'd started to wear the gloves after that, made up some rumour about having eczema or something. Eventually people stopped asking.  

"Theo," he said. "I'm fine it's tiny."

Theo looked at him incredulously. "Potter, it is literally gushing. Let me fix it."

Harry was about to protest, but then Malfoy spoke. "Let him fix it Potter."

And so he did. He sat patiently while Theo bustled around looking for their first aid stuff. Malfoy leaned against his favourite bench again. How irritating. 

"I thought you had eczema Potter?" he asked, eyeing the pale, suspiciously unblemished, expanse of Harry's arms. 

"I do," Harry said, wondering how on earth Malfoy could remember something like that. "It's not so bad at the minute because I spend so much time in here where it's a good temperature."

"Hmm." Malfoy replied. 

Luckily Theo came back with anti-septic potion and a healing balm. 

He rubbed the anti-septic potion over the wound carefully to nullify any chance of infection and then did the same thing with the balm, sealing the cut cleanly and effectively. He could feel Malfoy's eyes on him the whole time and didn't know what to make of it.

"Where are my gloves?" Harry asked when they were done.

"I've incinerated them Potter. They were covered in blood."

Harry scowled. Malfoy was beyond rude- always had been. He refused to let it interfere with his work. 

He performed the usual cleansing charms over his hands and forearms before picking up the surgical knife. He and Theo had decided that even though the scan hadn't picked anything up it was important to manually evaluate the functionality of Musgrave's organs. Perhaps there was some newly discovered muggle ailment that was undetectable even to magic. It was unlikely, but it was the best lead they had. 

"Lungs are fine." he said eventually. 

"Damn," said Theo. "Shoddy lungs were our last hope, we've really got nothing now."

"Are you completely certain you've done everything you can?" Malfoy asked, he too had begun to look bored, maybe finally fully realising how futile the evidence in this case was shaping up to be. "I think I was being harsh before, perhaps a good nights rest will be helpful."

"No shit." snarked Theo.

Harry felt a headache coming on. For the second time that night he began to clean up. He and Theo packed everything away as carefully as they had before, until Harry saw Malfoy reaching to look at one of the muggle styled microscopes they had sitting on the operating table right by Eliot. "Malfoy, that's fragile! Don't-"

He lightly slapped Malfoys hand away from the instrument, but in the brevity of the moment had lost sight of the dangers. Without his gloves on, his pinky finger barely grazed the body but it was enough. His sight went fuzzy and black around the edges, he felt a strange buzzing sensation around his core and his mind was flooded with a barrage of information about the deceased.

Musgrave Eliot's parents had died in a carpet accident. One of his grandmother's had died giving birth. His great grandfather had passed on in his sleep. A great, great grand parent had been poisoned by a rival. And, Harry gasped unwittingly, his great, great, great grandmother had sacrificed herself in a dangerous blood ritual that would immediately end the life of any family member or descendant who would shame the family by engaging in intimate behaviours with a member of the same sex or an impure-blood. It was very ancient magic, no wonder there had been no trace of a magical signature, by all accounts the magic was dead, only it's consequences remained alive on this earthly plane.

"Potter?" Malfoy said, expression strangely worried.

Harry had enough of his wits about him to smile, unconvincingly, and respond.

"Sorry, not feeling well today."

"Alright." Malfoy replied. There was a beat of awkward silence wherein Malfoy continued to look at him piercingly. "We definitely need to leave then, it's-" he paused, checking the time on his watch. "It's just gone past two am."

"I want a raise." said Theo, who had finished packing away the rest of the things and was slipping out of his white lab robes. 

Malfoy ignored him.

Harry stepped out of Malfoy's proximity and went to fetch his bag, he didn't bring a lot to work but he liked having something to store his water bottle and emergency supplies in.

"I'm off then." he said. 

Death repeated him mockingly. Harry refused to think about what he had just learned. Or much of anything really, he would be going home, and going to sleep.

"Alright, I'll walk with you, just a tick." said Theo, as he scrabbled to gather up his own things.

Harry noticed that Malfoy seemed to be waiting as well. 

When Theo was ready, they left together, walking through the silent, winding halls until they reached the elevator.

"Bit creepy at night innit," said Theo, as Death brushed a hand over his cheek.

Harry looked through the wrought iron bars of the elevator at the empty halls, remembering another night he had been at the ministry too late in the evening. 

"Definitely," he agreed. 

The lift shuddered to a halt on the main floor, and they all disembarked. Death trailed behind Harry ominously. 

Theo jumped into the first floo they walked past.

Harry, a creature of habit in some things, preferred to use the same floo every day. Walking towards the other side of the atrium he realised he was tired. He was so very, very tired. 

That was probably why he tripped gracelessly over a loose cobble stone. He would have landed in the fountain had a quick pair of arms not pulled him back.

"Careful Potter." Malfoy said, looking down at him with a blank face. "Don't hurt yourself."

For the second time in one evening Harry had to step away from Draco Malfoy.

"Course. Thanks."

"Say, Potter." Malfoy started.

"Yes?"

"Are you planning on attending the opening of the ministerial museum?"

Harry hadn't been. There was nothing he despised more than stuffy officials making small talk and ingratiating themselves to each other with false platitudes, Theo always went as their departmental representative, simply because Harry was more likely to turn up surly than charming. 

"No, Theo is our departmental rep."

Malfoy's face took on some element of exasperation. Which Harry found himself thinking was quite uncalled for, Theo was the perfect gentlemen, he had never made them or the aurors look bad.

"Don't look like that Malfoy, Theo does a wonderful job of it. He always makes a good impression on everyone. They all love him up there."

"Quite." replied Malfoy, lips thinning. "However, due to the size of your department, and the fact that your work is still mostly unheard of, I think it would be best that you both go. For reputation of course."

"But Malf-"

"You'll be there Potter, I hate to pull the head auror card, but I will order you if it comes down to it."

Harry scowled. "Of course Malfoy. Head Auror.  _Sir_. Whatever. Goodbye."

Harry knew he was acting like a petulant child, could see the frustration plain as day on Malfoy's face, and the ever present amusement that plagued Death's. He groaned. 

The entire day had been impossible. Harry walked quickly towards one of the many public fire-places, threw some powder to the stone and flooed straight home.

His trod on up to his bedroom, not bothering with dinner, and his last thoughts before his head hit his pillow were that if he were asleep he would not have to worry about anything.

 

 

 

Harry woke the next day to the smell of bacon burning.

There could only be one, terrifying, explanation. He quickly pulled on some underwear and socks and wrapped a loose sheet around his shoulders like a cape.

He figured that anyone brave enough to face down Hermione in a kitchen deserved to dress like a hero.

Harry entered the kitchen warily, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

"Merlin, Mione what are you doing?"

The kitchen was in an absolute state, and Harry felt his fingers twitch for a dishrag. Or a mop. There were very few things that Harry had in common with the Dursley's, something he prided himself on. But somewhere along the way, he had come to appreciate a tidy living space, especially in rooms where they prepared food.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist Harry. I'm experimenting."

"On what?" Harry asked incredulously, walking around to look closer at what she was doing. A pan of bacon was hovering precariously over some kind of flame machine. There was tinned spaghetti in a steaming bowl next to it, and an egg stuck to the wall. 

"Breakfast." Hermione said, grinning. "They call it the culinary art, but I really think that cooking is more like a science."

"What is that?" Harry asked, pointing to the flame machine.

"Bunsen burner. Didn't you ever use one in primary school?"

Harry shook his head, though now that she mentioned it, he did vaguely remember a lesson where proper use of the thing had been demonstrated.

"Is it meant to be used for bacon?"

"Well, technically no... But that's all part of investigative procedure. Results so far are inconclusive, but I'm sure that with time, I will be able to make the perfect english breakfast."

"You'll get there." he assured, then he went about making a real breakfast. 

When it was ready they brought their steaming plates out on to the back verandah, since they had been living together, breakfast overlooking the garden had become something of a tradition. One that they both enjoyed now that they had separate jobs and didn't see each other during the day.

Five minutes in, and Hermione was looking quite disgruntled.

"I don't understand how you do it. I really don't. No procedure, no recipe, no structure or discipline, and it still taste's _bloody_ good, when it comes out."

Harry laughed, Hermione swearing was less unusual since they had left school but it was still funny. "It's because of the secret ingredient Hermione." he said tartly.

She looked up, interest piqued. "Really? What is it Harry? Some kind of-"

"Love." he said, pulling the most tritely beautific face he could manage with a mouth full of savoury muffin.

"Shut up." Hermione replied. Throwing a bit of bacon at him.

It devolved from there. Childish antics were not uncommon in Grimmauld place. Hermione theorised that they were making up for lost time around the people they were most comfortable with.

When they finally sat back down to eat, it was quiet. Only morning sounds interrupted the paradise they had created for themselves. 

Their garden flourished. Full of colourful wildflowers and even some fruits and vegetables that Hermione had insisted they plant for practical purposes.

"How's Ron?" Hermione asked quietly, a little while later. 

Harry sighed. Hermione and Ron had always had a tumultuous relationship, filled to the brim with tumultuous ups and downs. This was one of the downs.

"He's good Hermione. Really good. I know he likes being an auror, but to tell you the truth we don't see much of each other lately."

Hermione exhaled slowly. "Good, of course."

There was an uncomfortable silence. "Hermione, maybe-"

"Don't Harry. Don't say it. He'll come back. He always comes back."

That was true. Ron did always come back. This time however, the damage when he had left had been... bad.

"It's not that I'm worried about Hermione. I'm worried that one day he'll leave again, and that you won't recover from it."

"That's not, I'm, Harry, I always recover."

That was also true, but Ron had been with them a long time. He was firmly wedged under Hermione's skin like a tick and had a way of getting her to forgive him.

Things had been difficult after the war. Very difficult. They all had had to deal with their losses. Hermione had to deal with her parents, who even now sometimes had trouble remembering her, Harry his sense of purpose, and Ron had lost Fred and later Ginny.

It had been fine for a while, they had grieved together. But behind closed doors Ron and Hermione had begun to argue, about silly things, things that didn't matter all that much but had eventually broken down their relationship.

So it was that Hermione had needed a place to stay. Harry had immediately offered up Grimmauld place, and in an act Harry was sure Ron hadn't yet forgiven him for, had gone with her. After that they had picked themselves up. Gone about their business, doing renovations and learning to live and getting proper adult jobs. Harry as a trainee auror and Hermione as a magical researcher a fancy wizarding university out by Cheshire. 

Ron, loyal, brave, friendly Ron, still hadn't come back.

 

 

 

Between deep discussions and random shenanigans breakfast had run a little longer than usual, and so Harry found himself rushing to get ready for work. He jumped in the shower, not bothering to wet his hair, and quickly soaped up.

 _"This is probably my favourite part of the day you know young dodger,"_ said Death, who was sitting on the toilet reading a magazine. 

"That is because you are a pervert." Harry replied bluntly, he had grown quite used to making his showers as utilitarian as possible under Death's supervision.

_"Not like that young dodger, just the ambiance of the room. It is pleasant is it not. New morning, new possibilities. Washing away the grime of the past."_

"It would be far more pleasant if you would go away." Harry replied, finishing up and turning the taps off. "And why do you call me that?"

 _"Young dodger?"_ at Harry's sound of ascent, Death explained. _"Because, young dodger. You are young, and you have dodged."_

"Dodged what?'

_"Death, child. Me. Although I am beginning to wonder how. You're not stupid. Not in the usual sense. But you resist and fear power and never laugh at my jokes."_

"There's nothing wrong with being wary of something that can corrupt you. I am not so stupid as to believe fear to be weak. And your jokes aren't funny."

Harry walked back into his room wearing a towel. He quickly sent an ironing charm at his slacks and simple button up shirt, before putting them on. He pulled his lab robe on over the top and found a spare set of gloves to protect his hands from any accidental touch that might have occurred during the day.

_"My jokes are hilarious."_

"Beg to differ."

_"Draco Malfoy's jokes are hilarious."_

Harry snorted. "Beg to differ."

_"Oh? You don't like him?"_

"What? Well, no-"

 _"You_ do _like him?"_

"No! Well-"

Death laughed. _"I can see into your soul boy. Don't bother. This is funny is it not? You banter like this with your Nott friend and laugh then."_

Harry thought about that for a moment. He did banter like that with Theo, the defining and most significant difference being that Theo could not see into the heart of soul or mock his most closely guarded secrets. 

"That's different." he muttered. "Also please don't tell me you're jealous?"

_"Death does not feel jealousy."_

"Superb then. I'll be on my way. And since you're not jealous you can be silent all day, like a good little reaper." Harry said, speed walking down the hall and grabbing his back pack on the way. He headed into the lounge room and scuttled around in some drawers looking for the floo powder.

 _"Little reaper!"_ Death spluttered. _"I am an all-powerful entity, a being of power so unimaginably terrifying that anyone who dared cross me would-"_

"I'm not buying it." Harry said, without looking up.

He should have.

In the next moment Death was the largest thing in the room, his cloak seemed to encompass every inch of space in the room, tendrils of darkness wove their way through the air, and very quickly all that Harry could see was pitch blackness.

His stomach clenched a little in fear. He had been goading Death for years, perhaps he should have thought twice, or a little let recklessly. 

_"You dare! You puny, irrelevant insect. Young dodger. I have half a mind to snap your bones and drink your blood."_

Death's voice boomed loudly around the room. Harry had trouble imagining that Hermione couldn't hear it. He found himself wishing that someone else had encountered this particular problem before.

There was a sudden swirling sensation in his gut. Harry felt his fingertips tingle and for some reason felt like there were ants crawling around his mouth, he could smell the scent of freshly turned soil and rotting flesh before;

POP!

He appeared with a crash inside Draco Malfoy's office. 

He could hear Death laughing and his temper rose. 

 _"Try get out of this one young dodger!"_ he laughed evilly, and then, for the first time in weeks, fully disappeared.

Thank goodness for small favours, Harry thought.

He looked around. By his clock it was 7.30. Draco Malfoy was office-infamous for arriving at precisely 7.35 in the atrium every day without fail. It would only take about another five minutes for him to make his way down to the offices. This could get ugly.

Harry knew from experience that the offices belonging to department heads were nye impenetrable, even if he could break the wards on the door he wouldn't be able to leave without being seen by whichever aurors were on shift. There was no window, and Harry knew the fireplace wasn't connected to the floo. 

He looked around. The desk was a mess of papers, but the cabinets and bookshelves seemed to be vaguely ordered, there was a system there, if one looked hard enough. Harry did not know why the mess surprised him, he had always imagined Malfoy might be one of those obsessive folk, who made sure everything was in it's proper place in it's proper time, like Hermione almost. This however, was organised chaos.

His watch ticked over to 7.35.

There was not a lot he could do really. But wait to be caught, and punished, and fired, and killed probably. He was breaking a lot of rules right this minute. And it wasn't like he was a basilisk, he couldn't travel secretly through the pipes of a building and-

Wait. It was true he couldn't travel through the pipes, there were no open pipes in the office anyway. But there was a fireplace, and with a fireplace came a chimney.

Harry tiptoed over to the fireplace, kneeling down and looking up. It was big enough. He just didn't know how he was going to get up there. 

He tried climbing first, using one foot to stabilise himself, and then planting the other halfway up the other side of the wall. He slid down slowly.

The he heard that dreaded voice in the hall.

Not one to give up, he tried again, this time angling his first foot differently and going for some type of leverage effect. Again, he came tumbling down. This time with a crash he was sure everyone outside would have heard. The voices in the hall came closer. Then came the jiggle of the doorknob. He could actually hear Malfoy now, making clipped demands in that authorative tone he tended to use now that he was head auror.

Panicking, Harry sent an aggressive jamming hex at the door. His palms were damp in his gloves and his brow was sweating profusely, he knew he was probably covered in ash but he didn't care. He had escaped from far worse pickles than this! Merlin, when he was eleven they had defeated a troll with a simple-

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry chanted silently, using all of his mental capacity to will his backpack to rise. It did, floating over to him and wagging it's straps enthusiastically. 

"Right, let's go then." Harry said.

The jiggling at the door became more aggressive, Harry sat down quickly on the bag. 

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he said, out loud this time. And the bag floated into the fireplace, Harry perched himself atop it, his feet on the ground. In one powerful movement Harry kicked off the ground, using wordless magic to help propel the charm, and he was off! Flying swiftly up the chimney on his back pack, just as the door to the office burst open. 

Halfway up, Harry began to experience some turbulence. The chimney was thinning for some reason and the charm was losing it's potency in the tight space. 

He cast again with all of his might.

The bag steadied. But came to a halt, they could go no higher. The sky was still a distant speck, and Harry had to wonder about the engineering of the place. 

He felt ridiculous. There he was, stuck inside Draco Malfoys chimney on a floating back pack after being illegally broken into his boss's office by Death. You couldn't make that stuff up.

"Think Harry, think." he said quietly to himself. What now? He couldn't apparate out, no one could. The ministry had put harsh restrictions on that since the war. He couldn't go up; his shrinking charms had always been too permanent. He refused to even acknowledge what would happen if he went down.

He cast a disillusionment charm on himself just in case Malfoy felt the sudden urge to look twenty metres up his chimney.

He worked best under pressure, he knew. That was why he hadn't immediately been able to think of flying away on his back pack. It was the knowledge that if he were to be caught he would almost definitely be asked to resign that had compelled him to act. 

He sat, stuck in the chimney for a near quarter of an hour before he realised that if he lowered himself about a metre he would be floating right next to his and Theo's work room. He lowered himself down carefully and inspected the wall in front of him. The structure of the building was old, the ministry had been standing for a long time after all, and as he looked at the crumbling mortar that surrounded the bricks he allowed himself a flicker of hope. 

Harry scratched at the mortar with his fingernail, and several tiny clunks tumbled down the chimney. Harry froze for a moment, not breathing. Most likely they had not been big enough to make a noise or alert anyone to anything suspicious, but you could never be too careful. Five minutes passed without movement. Slowly Harry reached his hand out to the brick. This was going to be tricky, he knew. It would be difficult to avoid alerting anyone below if he made even one mistake. First however, he would have to check if he was even positioned correctly.

He looked at the wall calculatingly, if he was correct he was hovering just by the top half of the wall, luckily they had decided against placing any bookshelves or furniture against it, he would have a clear passage. 

Harry cast a specialised blasting spell at a crevice between to bricks, the mortal shot out, into their office. But dust filled the cavity where Harry was sitting. His back pack coughed, and Harry tried not to splutter. When the dust cleared his eyes readjusted to the brighter light. He looked through the small rectangular hole in the wall. There was no movement in the room, which was off, because usually Theo was-

"Who's there!" cried Theo, pouting his wand straight into the crevice, and consequently about a centimetre away from Harry's eye. Which proceeded to roll.

He then cast a quick muffliato down at the fireplace. "It's Harry." he said, trying to project his voice.

"Potter! What in Merlin's saggy minge-hole are you doing in the wall!?"

"Never mind that Nott! Just help me get out, and be quiet about it, no one can know. I'll explain it to you later."

"Oh gods, the day has finally come hasn't it!" Theo wailed.

"What? Nott, just think. focus."

"I knew it would. I knew one day that this would happen." he cried, pulling his wand out of the crevice.

"What are you on about Theo?" Harry asked.

"Well, you've finally gone dark haven't you, I always knew it was coming. Always. You've always had a screw loose Potter. Just one headache away from mental snappage and dark-lord-hood."

Harry groaned. "Nott, shut up. I've not gone completely round the twist yet, but you must know that I am hovering illegally over our boss's fireplace on my backpack and I need to get through the wall without letting anyone down there know about it."

"Wow. You've really done it this time haven't you. Don't worry Potter. I know what we'll do."

Harry sighed in relief. His muscles were beginning to cramp up and he needed to stretch his legs desperately. 

"Hang on. _Ut Intactilis! Ut intactilis._ " Theo chanted solemnly.

Harry's hand, resting on the brick, suddenly fell completely through the wall. 

"It's like at Kings Cross!" he exclaimed.

"Exactly." came Theo's smug reply.

He felt Theo's hand grasp his own, and he let himself be hauled into their work room. His back pack came bounding after him.

Theo watched it scuttle around the room sniffing things bemused. "I think you've put too much power into that wingardium leviosa Potter. It's just like a cheeky crup." 

Harry watched as his back pack bounced between bounding around the room and flying up to the ceiling, all the while wagging it's straps and sniffing the furniture. He found himself growing inexplicably fond. Then he caught sight of the body bag containing Musgrave Eliot and yesterday's events came back to him in a soul destroying rush. How on earth were they supposed to 'figure out' what had happened?

Harry was going to end up having to find some obscure book with details about hereditary curses. He didn't want any awkward credit though, so he would have to make it seem like Theo found it. The question was how.

In the midst of Harry pondering this and that, and Theo petting his back pack, a shrill siren filled the air. Their second alarm. Where the first alarm was to warn them they had visitors, the second was set off by returning aurors who needed medical attention. Theo and Harry looked at each other, they hadn't known a raid was on, it must have been unplanned. They quickly gathered their emergency kits and ran out to the elevator. 

"We have an emergency Merv!" Theo said to the operator.

Merv, a thinning man in his late fifties, grinned toothily. "Alright, awf with ye, awf with ye!" he cried, shooing everyone else out of the elevator.

"Express medical delivery. Get awwf! Get awwf!" 

The disgruntled travellers removed themselves with rolling eyes and up-turned noses, Harry and Theo jumped onto the elevator quickly. Merv pulled the lever to 'magical emergency' and they were off. Harry and Theo held onto the arm-rails tight, and it was mere seconds before the elevator came to a complete shuddering halt. 

"Thanks Merv!" Harry cried, as they jumped quickly off the elevator.

"Arr, my pleasure boys!" he replied. "It's a lot more interesting with ye all these days, my oh my..."

They ran down the corridor that led to the auror department at top speed. Harry hastily shooting cleaning charms at his ashy clothes as he ran. 

Malfoy was waiting at the door when they arrived. "Nott. Potter. Calm down. Only two injured. Stake out gone wrong. They got caught up in spider-wards and have some minor lacerations. They got out fine though, you'll just have to stitch them up."

"Who is it?" Harry asked as they walked through the labyrinthine department at a brisk pace. 

"Creevey." Malfoy said.

Harry winced. "And?"

"Weasley. Ronald."

Ron. Harry sighed. This was going to be very awkward probably. They were still best friends. It was just.. difficult.

They entered the health centre, a small room with white walls and a row of comfortable beds. Two were occupied.

Harry went to Ron's side immediately and Theo went to tend Dennis.

Harry performed a quick diagnostic, and exhaled in relief.

Spider wards, so called for their web like nature, were renowned for causing permanent damage. It worked like this; they could surround entire buildings, often taking the shape of massive, invisible spheres, and were effective even underground. If anyone tried to enter the premise without the express permission of the castor, then the webs would trap the intruder, physically tying them to the ward like flies, often strangling or cutting through skin. 

"Alright. You've only got minor lacerations. I'll give you some pain reliever and do the usual healing spells. Do I have your consent?"

Ron nodded.

Harry pulled out several light blue vials from his back pack. Which was yipping at his heels.

"Alright. You know the drill, swallow every last drop. And then one every hour for the next four hours."

Ron nodded again, and sculled the first vial. His expression immediately became less pained, and Harry hoped Ron would feel more comfortable. he wondered if he still blamed Harry for what had happened. 

Harry concentrated on magically disinfecting the skin, and tying it back together. It took around half an hour, but eventually the criss-cross of cut that had ran the length of Ron's stomach and chest knitted back together with very minimal scarring. "Caro mundi, caro mundi, carnibus vestisti, carnibus vestisti..."

By the other bed, Theo cast the same charms. Harry looked up and smiled at him. It was good, being able to help like this, after the predicament with Eliot. He knew Theo would be feeling relieved that they could do something to reiterate their worth, something that was helpful, and valuable. It was why they did what they did after all. Both of them wanted to make things better, and to do good, and to heal.

He looked up at the door and saw that Malfoy was still standing there watching them, face inscrutable. They too made eye contact, but neither of them smiled.

His relationship with Malfoy had been somewhat strained since the war. They had both started auror training at the same time. Harry had been less surprised by how talented Malfoy was than the fact that Malfoy seemed very determined to be a great auror. They hadn't seen a lot of each other in the classes. Harry had got the sense that Malfoy didn't want to see much of anybody, and apart from one particularly tense sparring session, one that had been strangely reflective of that one incident in second year duelling club, they had not interacted.

Neither of them had won the spar. It had simply gone on, and on, and on, until their instructor had ordered them to call it quits. Malfoy was bigger, but Harry was quicker. Malfoy was uncompromising, but Harry was determined. Malfoy used a broader repertoire of spells, but Harry had mastered what he knew. Malfoy liked to play dirty and cheat, but Harry was reckless and unpredictable. They were both evenly matched. 

Then had come the time for Harry and Theo to quit. He hadn't seen Malfoy for five years while they did their healer training, and when they had finally returned the beaurocratic cogs were turning, pushing Draco Malfoy into the position of department head. Harry had been reluctantly impressed. Even more so when Draco had proved to be a fair and strong leader, albeit demanding and still possessing of a slight mean streak.

Harry snapped his eyes away quickly, only to realise that Ron was staring at him intently.

Harry coughed, and ruffled his hair.

"Harry, errm. I was just wondering, err.."

"Yeah, Ron?" he said.

"How's, how are you? And, how... how is Hermione?"

"I'm good Ron." he replied quietly. "I'm really good." 

Ron nodded eagerly. "That's good. And-"

"She's good too. She's working as a magical researcher. She really likes it."

Ron nodded, smiling. "She'd enjoy that."

"Yes." Harry replied, more primly than he would have thought possible. 

Ron looked a little abashed, and though Harry felt a twinge of guilt that he had put that expression there, he couldn't help but be reminded of lonely nights in Grimmauld Place when he and Hermione hadn't been able to ignore that something was missing. Times when hot chocolate, and traditional breakfasts, and beautiful gardens weren't enough to replace the friend that had left them.

Harry had a lot of time for Ron Weasley, loyal, kind, fair, dependable, Ron Weasley. 

But he did not have a lot of time for the Ron Weasley who had kicked Hermione out of his home, knowing she had nowhere else to go. 

Harry could forgive a lot of things, probably even that in time, but Hermione was his best friend as well, and she had needed him.

"Give it time Ron. It's still raw."

"It's been years mate! I don't know what-"

"You do Ron. It has not been that long. It's been years since you were official, but don't think for one second that I don't monitor the wards in my own home. I know that you come back, and I know that you leave again, and more than that I know what happens afterwards. And thats all I need to know. You need to man up, and make a decision. Because otherwise Hermione is going to wait for you forever, and I know you don't want her waiting, I know deep down you want her happy. So decide."

Ron looked shocked. The tips of his ears were red and his breath was coming out in short pants. 

"You don't understand!" he said, spittle flying out his mouth. "You don't, Harry you just don't!" 

"I understand enough." he said. "If that's all?"

He had not meant to get into an argument, especially one so personal in front of- gods, Malfoy was still there. Theo and Creevey were looking pointedly away, but Malfoy was staring straight at him, unflinchingly. 

Ron didn't reply, so he stood. Picking up his back pack as it licked his hand comfortingly with the zip. 

"Decide Ron. And be fair about it."

He turned. He wouldn't lie to himself, he couldn't help but feel a little victorious. He had never criticised Ron in regards to his treatment of Hermione before. He'd been worried it wasn't his business, worried that Hermione would be mad (and she would be, when she found out), worried that he would drive Ron away forever. 

But there it was. He'd been honest, and to the point, and he really hoped he'd got the message across. Because Harry was all too aware that if Ron did not reject Hermione fully, she would never give up on him. She loved him unconditionally, she loved him impossibly. 

Harry childishly hoped that Ron wouldn't reject her though, he had his fingers crossed, deep down that they would still end up together. At the same time, however he understood that naive hopes in regards to things that weren't his business were not as important as Hermione's feelings. He was prepared to support Hermione through whatever happened, she could protect herself from almost anything, but an emotional attack from someone she cared about, well. There was a reason they were friends. 

"Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry Potter. You really don't know what you're talking about." Ron said.

Harry turned around, confused by the icy tone to Ron's voice. Whenever Ron was mad, it was like hot anger, he leaked emotion and turned red and yelled. This cool detachment was new. 

"Ron, what?"

"Maybe you should ask Hermione. You don't even know what happened, what she's been hiding all these years, and yet you sided with her immediately, implicitly. Did you even give a shit about me? I don't think so."

"Ron." Harry said calmly. "It's not really the place."

"Oh well, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you Harry. Don't worry. Just meant to be best mates and all. But I suppose, times change."

"Ron! We can talk about it later, when we're not at work." this seemed to startle Ron out of whatever funk he had been falling in to. 

"Whatever Harry." he said. His gaze sliding towards the window. 

Harry looked over at Theo in confusion. This was his mistake. 

He heard crash and a roar, and began instinctually turning towards the sound, he was just in time to see Ron standing above him, jagged vial in hand and poised to strike.

"Petrificus totalus!" said Malfoy.

Ron froze completely. Hatred in his eyes, and spite in his heart. 

Harry was so, so confused. 

Everything else was in character, the absences, the jealousy, the anger. But an attack? It didn't seem within the realm of possibility, and yet there was Ron, frozen before him, jagged weapon at the ready and prepared to stab him in the back. In front of qualified aurors no less. It made no sense, he loved his job and despite whatever difficulties they were having he loved Harry. What on earth was going on?

"Potter, I think you and Nott should return to your work room and continue research on the Eliot case."

No way. Malfoy would not be getting rid of him that easily.

"We figured it out last night." he said absently, still staring at Ron. There was something in the expression maybe, that was familiar. But other than that... it seemed like a stranger wearing Ron's face. 

"Potter!"

"What?" he asked, snapping his head towards Malfoy. "Go wait outside with Nott. Please send Divilier in while you're at it."

"But-"

"Potter, get out. You are not fully trained to detain a dangerous person, it's a matter of safety. Leave."

Harry scowled. but let Theo drag him out by the arm. They walked around to Divilier's office silently.

 

 

 

"Malfoy looked piiiiiiissed." said Nott.

Harry snorted. "What boss wouldn't be, if one of their workers suddenly went so utterly off their nut."

"Yeah." said Nott. "That's _precisely_ what I was trying to imply with that statement, you oblivious worm."

 

 

 

They ended up waiting in the Hub. 

The Hub was essentially the centre of auror activity, in one room they manned the emergency owls, patronus's and other summons. Further to this however, the room acted as home-base to most of the aurors. Only senior or highly ranked aurors warranted a private office, so most made do with a booth in the Hub, as such the room always looked as though a paperwork hurricane had hit, with workers rushing about like bees in a hive and aurors bringing suspects in, it was always a crazy cacophony. 

Theo and Harry appropriated some swivel chairs and went and sat in Ron's booth, he wouldn't need it after all. 

"Heard what happened." came a voice from over the wall. A head of sleek black hair popped over the top edge, "You boys should come for drinks tonight."

"You mean, you're inviting us lowly auror-surgeons to your monthly actual aurors under the influence fest! _We_ get to party with the big boys! Appealing Chang. Don't know how I'll refuse."

"Then don't. You both really look like you could use a drink."

"To be honest I am a little offended that we haven't been invited before." said Theo. "We practically live on this floor you know. We are the lifeblood of this department. We are essential. You would all be dead and buried without us. Truly."

"This is why Nott. It's because you're an annoying wanker with a big mouth."

"I do indeed have a big mouth Chang. Much obliged to you for noticing"

"You're repulsive." she said. But she was still smiling.

Harry tried not to be too embarrassed for him. Theo was gayer than the most colourful rainbow, but he couldn't seem to resist flirting with anything that drew breathe.

"I'm _invited_." Theo corrected. "And Harry's coming too, no excuses."

"What's this?" asked Malfoy, who had suddenly appeared from the ether.

"Aurors under the influence sir. It's gonna be rowdy! Are you coming?"

Malfoy crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow. 

"Do I want to attend a monthly event that is sure to result only in bitter disappointment for the people I work with?"

"Don't be so square Malfoy." said Nott, cutting as ever.

"Even Harry's going this time. And he's a hermit." added Cho.

"Cho!" Harry snapped, embarrassed for some reason.

"Well, I suppose I could stop by. When and where?" Malfoy said with a grin.

"The Blue Potion, eight tonight." replied Cho.

Malfoy nodded, smirking at Harry's disgruntled expression.

"Cheer up Potter. The outside world isn't so bad."

"How would you know." Harry muttered darkly. 

He wasn't past thinking that Malfoy was making a special effort just to piss him off. Malfoy merely grinned wickedly, and said. "Follow me." 

 

 

 

They ended up in Malfoy's office. 

Which Harry couldn't help but find ironic. He'd only been once before, and now he'd been twice in the space of a few hours. 

"Okay Potter, I'm only telling you this because you're his friend and I know you'll make a royal fuss if I don't."

"Why am I here then?" challenged Theo.

Draco frowned. "Two in a relationship such as yours are likely to share these things. I'm merely saving you a retelling."

Silence. Crickets. The world smallest violin playing a confused off-beat tune.

"What?" Theo croaked.

Harry couldn't form words, Malfoy simply leaned back in his chair and intertwined his fingers. 

"Malfoy?" Harry finally gathers up the gumption to ask.

"Potter?" Malfoy mimics.

"Merlins saggy minge-hole. Malfoy you gullible, gutless wonder. Potter and I, we never-" Theo said before he was interrupted. 

"You don't have to pretend. I'm not going to suspend you or anything, I just insist that this silly secrecy business desist. You're both terrible actors."

"We're not-" Hary tries again.

"Potter, Nott." Malfoy says, placatingly. "I am a highly trained auror. I understand the concept of observation and believe it or not-"

"Look Malfoy, Potter is very, very fit," Theo said, winking at Harry lasciviously. "But I am a rolling stone. I cannot be tamed by one man or one cock. Get your record straight."

"Theo!" Harry reprimands.

Malfoy was beginning to look slightly embarrassed. "But... it's ridiculous. You're always in the same place. You leave work together every Wednesday. You're always touching. You have an alarm to warn you when people are approaching your office! And last of all; it said so in the prophet!"

"Well that just proves it then, doesn't it Theo, printed in the prophet? That veritable paragon of truth! Why we must be in love." Harry snaps, tired of the discussion.

Malfoy has the good sense to look mortified, and it's an expression Harry hasn't seen on his face in a very long time. 

"So you're not-"

They both shake their heads solemnly. 

"Right then. That'll be all. Goodbye."

It is a very clear dismissal, and despite the fact that Malfoy has not told them what he wanted to, Harry can't escape fast enough.

 

 

 

"That was the worst thing that has ever happened to me." Harry said as they trudged back up to their office. 

"Really? This is going to do wonders for my reputation." replied Theo.

"What? How?" asked Harry.

"Well, apparently everyone thinks I've been getting my groove on with the boy who lived in the ministry basement. Sounds impressive to me."

Harry groaned. "Shut up, you actual idiot."

Theo laughed merrily. 

"Harry." he said a while later, tone serious. "I think we _should_ go out tonight, you know. Get your mind off, well, you know."

"Yeah, alright." Harry replied. 

When they re-enter their work room Harry is reminded of the fact that he had told Malfoy that they solved the cause of death situation with Eliot. Which means that they are going to have to organise some paperwork to send downstairs very quickly lest they get caught out. 

Theo seemed to remember this at the same time, and asked him. "What are we going to say happened? Do we even know?"

Harry set about explaining. Saying he'd read about hereditary curses in some book courtesy of the Black Family Library. 

It's not a lot to go on, but they spend the afternoon gathering enough data to prove that it's highly likely. Harry ignores the fact that he is 100% certain of what happened to Musgrave Eliot, and continues to treat the investigation like any other. It's a quiet afternoon reading, but eventually they find what they need, and compile the information. When they send it upstairs it is with great satisfaction. They have solved a problem, a difficult one. The aurors won't have to do much else now, other than finalise the information and tell the family. Other than that, case concluded. 

They both pack up early, with no other pressing investigations they have nothing to do, if an emergency comes up they will be buzzed in via Protean bracelets designed specifically for them after Hermione's DA coins. He and Theo leave together, it's Wednesday, and it's not as awkward as it could have been considering that they now know how their actions have been misinterpreted. Instead, Theo smiled salaciously and pinched Harry's bum as they disappear in a swirl of flame. Harry is almost sure he heard shocked gasps before they arrive in the lounge room of Grimmauld Place. 

"You are such an embarrassing twat and I have no idea why we associate." Harry harps as they hang their bags up. Like breakfast with Hermione, Wednesday afternoons with Theo are also a tradition. 

It is not something they talk about a lot. But one of the things that sparked their friendship in the first place was shared experience. Shared childhood experience. 

Harry doesn't know much, but he knows enough to understand that while the starvation, beatings and general negligence he received at the hands of the Dursley's was bad, it was nothing compared to being raised singlehandedly by a dark ex-death eater with a dangerous potions addiction. 

They had made a pact however; that they would attempt to reclaim every small thing they had ever missed out on or been told they couldn't enjoy. They do it every Wednesday afternoon. 

Today was movies. This was more Harry's thing than Theo's, who had never heard of television until he went to Hogwarts and met a few muggleborns. But they were both still excited. Hermione had charmed a television to work effectively for about three hours in the presence of magic, any longer than that and there would be complications. They were going to watch The Fox and the Hound.

Harry vividly remembered the first time he had heard of the movie, he had been young, maybe around four or five, and Dudley had received it for his birthday. 

Dudley hadn't liked it, at all. In fact Dudley had engaged in a temper tantrum of such extreme proportions that the video tape had immediately been binned and replaced by three other more pleasing substitutes. 

A day later, Harry had snuck it out from underneath a banana skin and was hiding it in his cupboard. He had liked to look at the colourful picture on the box. The brilliant red fox and the handsome copper dog. Friends.

Of course, when Dudley had seen him looking at it one day, one careless day when he had left the cupboard door open, it was taken from him. The paper with the colourful picture pulled out of it's protective plastic sleeve and ripped to shreds before his eyes. 

It marked the beginning of a trend that would haunt him until he turned eleven and discovered magic.

"That was brilliant." Theo said, when the film was over. "I wish wizards had movies. With like, wizardly plot lines and stuff."

"There are movies with magic in them, they'd just be from a muggle perspective." Harry replied, as he sat up and turned the television off.

"We should watch some of those next week... Harry?"

"Yes?" he replied.

"Don't think for one second that I have forgotten that I had to break you and your barking back pack out of a chimney today."

Bugger. Harry had been hoping he would forget. "Wouldn't dream of it." he said calmly.

"I should head off, I want to get proper ready for tonight. D'you want me to come back and pick you up?" asked Theo as he stood up from the couch and stretched. 

Harry considered briefly Theo's very nice sports car, and then the adrenalin junkie driving skills that went with it. 

"Nah, I'll just apparate."

"Alright. See you at eight." Theo said, as he jumped back into the floo.

 

 

 

Left to his own devices, Harry decided he too should get ready for going out. In his room, he opened his cupboard and took a look at the limited range of clothing hung up neatly. He sat down on the edge of his bed, and stared at the clothes. 

Why did he think it was acceptable to only have five outfits? How was he supposed to do anything? He asked himself, flopping back hopelessly and staring at the ceiling.

Hermione found him like that half an hour later when she bustled into his room bearing shopping bags. 

"Theo owled me. He said you'd need help. I bring gifts." She said, smiling. 

"How was work?" he asked.

"Wonderful. Zabini has suggested that the potion we are working on might actually be more potent depending on certain stages of the lunar cycle, which is brilliant, I don't know how I didn't realise it before, but we're testing it out now."

"Sounds good." Harry replied. 

Truthfully, most of what Hermione did went over his head, but he liked to hear about it. 

Hermione rolled her eyes, something he was almost certain she had picked up from him. The same way he had picked up her habit of knuckle cracking sometime around fourth year. 

"Harry Potter, prepare to be amazed." she said, as she threw the bags down on his bed.

"Ooooph." he grunted as one hit his stomach. "Why are there so many?" he asked.

"Well, it's not practical all of the time of course, but sometimes, when faced with a limited wardrobe such a yours, it is okay for one to splurge a little." she replied. nose turning a little pink. Harry grinned.

"Hermione Granger. Tsk tsk. You didn't happen to enjoy going _shopping_ now did you? How ever will the gods of practicality and sense forgive you?"

"Of course not. A means to an end I assure you." she huffed, sitting down on the bed with her legs crossed like a student. "Let's do inventory." 

Harry groaned. 

He remembered inventory. 

Painfully.

It was something Hermione had done at the start of every year with new school supplies. As a student she had taken great delight in counting out all of her pens, quills, textbooks and various stationary items before supplying Harry and Ron with a red pen each ( _"for editing"_ ), and whatever other study equipment she was currently enamoured with. Harry had indeed seen some things in his time, post-it notes that yelled at you if you didn't utilise them, erasers that sung motivational affirmations, and worst of all a particularly horrific calendar that magically understood when your homework was due and would fly around your head until you decided to complete it, pages flapping madly at the distress of it all.

So yes, inventory. Not Harry's favourite pass-time.

"Three argyle jumpers. All soft. Two in varying shades of green. One navy." Hermione intoned, already copying down information from the receipt into a sturdy looking notebook. "Six pairs of cotton socks. Three ankle length, and white. Three standard, and black."

He zoned out for a while as she finished. He couldn't help it. Inventory was and always would be a shudder-inducing activity, even despite how grateful he was that Hermione cared enough about him to make a detailed list of his every possession. 

Harry looked at the ceiling again. It was the same as it had been when he had stayed in the room as a teenager, except cleaner. There were still long cracks up the side and the paint was peeling in places. 

"I think I might try a paint job in here." he said.

"Two pairs of formal trousers. Both suitable for work. One black. One charcoal."

"Maybe pink."

"Three pairs of jeans. One black, and skinny. One blue, standard. One grey, skinny."

"Or I could go wild and paint the town silver and green."

Hermione huffed again. "Harry that won't work. I firmly support all houses and their respective colours."

"So I'll do your room while I'm at it then?"

"Well- I, that really won't be necessary Harry, but thankyou for offering." Hermione primly. 

Harry smirked and thought that they had known each other rather too long. He must have been looking quite smug, because Hermione piped up. "Stop looking so satisfied and try these on."

Harry looked at the clothing she had thrust at him. Once it would have annoyed him, her going and getting so many clothes at once. But he had grown out of that, he realised that he could buy whatever he wanted now, within reason. No one would take it away from him. 

He stood up and hid between the wall and the door.

"I've seen it all Harry Potter and I don't care for it. You look like an idiot right now."

"Shut up." he muttered, and then stayed behind the door out of spite.

After much hassle, and an arm in the wrong hole, he figured it out and stepped slowly back into the room from behind the door. The woollen fabric of the shirt felt soft on his skin and he could tell from how it hung that it was a good fit. The black jeans were another matter, far tighter than anything he had worn before he wondered if he was decent.

Hermione whistled low. "Well. I always knew I was a genius. I just never knew my skills could take on the field if high fashion."

"Good then?" he asked. He wasn't preening. Preening was for pillocks. Like Malfoy.

"Spectacular. I'd say we should do something with your hair, but I don't think there's any hope for that mess."

"It's not as bad as it used to be though." That was true, it had calmed some with age, the back still stuck up, but the front was more prone to chaotic curls than anything properly gravity defying.

"True." she said thoughtfully. 

He looked at her, she was still on the bed, folding the clothes carefully into piles and making notations. He wondered when she had last been out socially. He suspected it had been a long time.

"Well, off with you then Harry. You're going to be late otherwise." she ordered, not looking up from her task.

It was probably past time, Harry thought pleasantly, for him to employ some of those oft neglected slytherin skills he had hidden away.

"I don't know Hermione. I'm starting to think maybe I shouldn't go." he said, trying his best to look forlorn.

"What!? Why?" Hermione asked, looking up at him suddenly. 

"I don't really want to arrive on my own you know. I barely know anyone." that was a stretch, he knew most of the aurors intimately after being given license to fix their bodies after missions, there was a certain level of trust involved in healing that more often than not left he and Theo close to their patients. 

"Why didn't you get Theo to pick you up then? I know he would have offered." 

"I didn't think of it at the time. Besides Theo drives like a madman." he walked around and sat next to her. "Do you want to come?"

"Come what? Drinking with ruffian law enforcers and inevitably, awkwardly bumping into Ronald?" she asked, looking a little frustrated.

"Ron won't be there." he supplied, not mentioning that Ron was currently in custody. "It'll be fun. Help a friend in need would you."

Hermione snorted, but there was a glint in her eye that Harry knew from years of experience meant that she was at least a little interested.

"I have nothing to wear." she argued.

"Liar." he replied. 

She looked up again and they stared off for a moment before Hermione squinted her eyes a little and said. "Fine. But you owe me."

 

 

 

The next half hour saw them arriving at the public apparition point of the Blue Potion. The street was light and colourful, even though it was night time, and the atmosphere was friendly. Fluorescent fairy lights glowingly marked the doorway to the club. 

When they got to the door Hermione paused nervously. Harry turned back. "You'll be fine. You look great." he said truthfully, she was wearing a knee length blue dress with an elegant neck and no sleeves. She'd brushed her hair into semi-submission and it floated about her face attractively, if wildly.

Hermione nodded at him, and they walked into the club. 

"Potter!" he heard Theo yell before the man that matched the voice was attached to him like a koala to a tree. "And the lovely Hermione." he said, disconnecting from Harry and kissing her hand.

Hermione smiled. "Theo." she greeted with a nod.

"I take it you've started in on the drinks." Harry asked.

Theo laughed. "Potter, drink waits for no man, and I wait for no drink." Harry rolled his eyes, well used to such antics. "I got you a blood-sucker by the way." Theo added, pulling out a vial with a raspberry flavoured shot inside. "If I had known Hermione was coming I would have ferreted out something nice for her to, alas, we shall have to go hunting." 

Theo dragged Hermione away to the bar laughing and Harry was left, standing alone and bemused with his blood-sucker. He took the time to have a look around. The Blue Potion certainly knew how to draw the young crowd he thought, there were veritable swarms of people over on the dance floor grooving to something loud. Harry spotted a number of his colleagues amongst them. 

The bar too, seemed to be absolutely surrounded by eager customers, many of whom he could see were either smiling or laughing with riotous, drunken delight. In short, it was a mad house. 

"Potter!" he heard several voices call. He turned. Cho, Parkinson and Wriggle were all waving at him from a booth. He walked over, and sat in the small space made by Parkinson as she scooted over. 

"Hullo." he greeted. Welcomes were exchanged.  

"I can't believe you actually came Potter," Pansy said loudly over the noise. "I owe Chang a galleon."

Harry rolled his eyes. His and Pansy's relationship was interesting to say the least. He was pretty sure they were friends, but most of the time they preferred to act as though they were loathed enemies. Delighting in a shared love of snark and pointless arguments. 

They conversed for some time after that, Harry skulled his blood-sucker, then spent a while sipping on a pint of Oddscotch. By the time Wriggle suggested they all hit the dance floor Harry was feeling pleasantly buzzed, and pliant enough to actually follow them out. Truth be told Harry was better at dancing drunk than he was sober, the lack of his usual inhibitions prevented him from making nervous mistakes and he felt more at ease moving his body to a rhythm and with a crowd. He danced with Parkinson for a while, bouncing up and down to the beat and mouthing the words when he knew them, but when she was whirled away by Percy Weasley of all people he somehow ended up with a stranger. 

"Tank." the man introduced with a smile. He was short, around Harry's height, with electric blue hair and an easy grin. There was nothing sexual in the way they moved together, it was all innocent fun, and Harry rather thought he'd made a new friend. In between songs he learnt that Tank was in training to be a medi-wizard but was the lead singer of an indie-rock band in his spare time. In turn Harry shared that he was an auror-surgeon, which led them on to a brief discussion about the woes of handing in essays to an anatomy instructor Harry had studied under during his own training. 

"Alright, time to slow it right dooown." crooned the DJ, lowering the volume. "Here's a slow one for all of you slow folks."

Harry and Tank parted ways then. Tank off to dance with a girlfriend and Harry making a strategic retreat to the bar. He wasn't even halfway there before he felt a hand on his wrist. He turned sharply.

"Oh. It's you." he said.

Draco Malfoy was standing before him, looking unfairly attractive in dark, pressed trousers and a silk shirt with the first two buttons undone. A silver chain hung around the pale column of his neck and a circular pendant rested casually between his collarbone. 

"Good evening Potter. Oh yes, quite fine thankyou. I _did_ travel safely." Malfoy mocked. 

Harry grunted somewhat inelegantly and disengaged his wrist from Malfoy's hand. He turned and kept walking towards the bar, he found he was suddenly craving another blood-sucker. 

"We should dance Potter." Malfoy said. Because apparently he had nothing better to do than follow Harry. "You need the practice."

"I dance just fine Malfoy." he said, not even sparing the man a glance. He was aware that to anyone watching, and to Malfoy, that he seemed extremely standoffish, maybe even rude. But Harry couldn't shake the notion that if he looked him in the eye then Malfoy would suddenly see right through him, know intimately every single secret and every single flyaway thought Harry had ever had. He kept walking. 

"Prove it." Malfoy goaded.

Harry ordered a blood-sucker instead. Swallowing it all down not two seconds after it had been given to him. Not the best of his ideas, but there had been a lot on his mind recently, the Eliot case, Ron... and Malfoy. Malfoy who was staring at him with one eyebrow raised superciliously. It was an expression he was frequently on the end of at work too, and suddenly that was unbearable. How utterly horrid, that he should only ever know Malfoy's work faces, and never meet the man behind them. 

"Alright then, let's dance" Harry said, recklessly, grabbing Malfoy's hand on a sudden impulse.

Malfoys expression went surprised for a moment before he hid it behind a smirk. 

Harry placed the empty blood-sucker vial back on the bar before stalking back over to the dance-floor. Malfoy followed him, and when he turned back around there was a look in Malfoys eyes that reminded Harry a little of a predator hunting it's prey. Merlin he was drunk.

They were in time to catch the end of the slow song, which was still playing from before. The floor was filled with couples who had paired off and were swaying slowly to the music. Malfoy bowed his head. Harry, assuming it to be some kind of pureblood gesture, did the same. Then he felt one warm hand coming to grip his hip, and another grasp his hand. It was nice, Harry thought slowly, as they rocked back and forth together, probably far beneath Malfoy's skill level, but it was comfortable and warm and Harry didn't really want it to end. He wanted to step closer actually. He wanted to be so near to Malfoy that it would be hard for anyone watching to distinguish where one of them finished and the other began.

This was not a new feeling, just one that he had refused to entertain fully before. In the past whenever he had caught himself admiring the slope of Malfoys neck, or the strength in his arms, or his capacity to be a good leader, or his determination, or his drive, Harry had quickly shooed those feelings under some mental rug. A rug that he never lifted or disturbed, except apparently, for when he found himself wound up in Malfoys arms. 

The song ended, and Harry stepped backwards. It didn't do well to dwell on dreams after all. 

"Harry! D'you want to dance again- oh." 

Harry turned to see Tank from before, and smiled. Which apparently was the wrong thing to do, because Tank, instead of smiling back looked vaguely horrified and scuttled away quickly.

He turned back to Malfoy who's face was blank and vacant of expression. "That was odd," he said. "He was very friendly before."

"Quite." replied Malfoy, who suddenly stepped very close and placed two hands on his hips. "Don't worry Potter. I'll keep you company."

"But-" he was interrupted by the beginnings of a new song, the DJ had returned to loud, fast-paced music and Harry thought he could feel his heart pounding in time with the bass. Malfoy's beautiful neck was right next to his face and he felt warm all over. He could feel the muscles of Malfoy's back working under his hands and hoped that this moment would last forever. 

"I want to try something." Malfoy murmured in his ear.

"Okay." Harry agreed, pliable like putty.

Malfoy's hands left Harry's hips for a moment as he stepped outside of Harry's vision, and Harry panicked for a moment that he had done something wrong before he caught himself and sent angry lion-esque thoughts about independence towards his stupid heart. Then he felt warmth at his back and there were hands once again planted on his hips and that felt- really good, so he let his worries go and simply enjoyed the experience. Minutes and songs crept by, by Malfoy didn't seem inclined to change his position, and so Harry got a little brave and ground back. He heard Malfoy's breath hitch, and the hands on his hips gripped him tighter. Harry shut his eyes. 

He danced in the darkness, basking in being so close- for once- to Malfoy, and the happy buzz of intoxication. He was so gone he almost didn't notice when Malfoy's lips met the back of his neck, but the thrill that ran directly down his spine, the goose bumps that rose on his arms and the pleasant shiver that wracked his body were too evident to ignore. His eyes shot open and the first thing he saw was death. His fingers tingled and he felt stomach acid rise on the back of his throat, his heart beat shot up and his lungs felt constricted, he couldn't breathe. Heart attack then. Merlin. Draco was old when it happened at least, around one hundred and three. 

God, he was going to be sick. It wasn't something he had thought about before- Malfoy dying, but now that he had he couldn't stop. It wasn't so much that it would happen, everyone died after all, it was the wondering if he would be there to see it, what happened in between. Did he have a good life? Did he do all the things he wanted to before Death came for him? Did he have children? A wife? 

A small voice, quickly dismissed, wondered if he would ever want Harry.

He stumbled away from Draco, ignoring any cries of his name and walking quickly into the mens bathroom. He locked the door to the cubicle and sat down with his head between his knees. Harry took deep breathes and tried to calm himself down. He was usually so careful. He wore long sleeves everywhere, and apart from yesterday's mistake in the lab his gloves were a constant. He couldn't have predicted that Malfoy would kiss him though, and certainly not randomly on the back of his neck.

And now look what he'd done. In a panic he'd rushed blindly off to the bathroom thinking about death, Malfoy probably thought he'd gone mad. 

Harry groaned, but then reality caught up with him.

Malfoy had kissed him.

_Malfoy had kissed him._

A little more selfishly; Malfoy wouldn't die until he was in his hundreds. 

Harry smiled, maybe he did have a chance. After all, a boss didn't go about kissing any old employee. 

He stood up, still feeling a little nauseous, and steadying himself with a palm on the wall.

"Hurry up!" someone called rudely from outside.

"Impatient wanker." Harry muttered, but he couldn't quite pull off his usual brood, he was feeling too hopeful. 

Upon exiting the cubicle he paused in front of the mirror. He straightened the soft turquoise jumper Hermione had dressed him in and ran a hand down the side of his jeans, still a little too skinny for his taste, but they looked good. He tried flattening his hair a little before deciding that if Malfoy liked him at all he would have to take the hedge-hog style in his stride. Harry walked out of the bathroom, feeling a little jittery. Nerves however, could not stop the thrill of anticipation that ran deep in his gut.

Despite all of his fantasies, Harry had never once entertained the idea that Malfoy could possibly like him. It wasn't so much a self confidence thing, Harry knew he could be attractive when he wanted to be, as it was that he simply never imagined himself to be Malfoys type. Draco had always seemed to be the sort of person who wanted someone pretty, someone who would do everything he said and keep house. Someone with pureblood and purer ideals. 

Someone so utterly unlike Harry that they might as well have been realms apart. 

He looked around at all of the tables, but Malfoy had not sat down anywhere. The bar too, was surrounded by a lot of people, but none of them were Malfoy.

The dance floor then. Harry walked past the bar and down into the crowd. He made his way through the sea of jostling bodies looking for that one distinctive head of platinum blonde hair. There- a flash of silky white gold, and Harry was walking towards it before he could properly process what he was seeing. Reaching out before he understood- Malfoy was dancing with someone, dancing close, with his mouth. Dancing with, of all people, Cho Chang. 

Harry turned quickly before he could be spotted. Not wanting to spill his pathetic heart all over the floor. He passed Hermione on the way out, told her he was leaving and felt some brief amount of happiness that she at least, seemed to have had a good time. The image of Cho and Malfoy kissing has been burned into his mind, it was an image he firmly told himself, that did not matter at all. 

He walked briskly out to the apparition point, avoiding the breath testers and apparating under the influence. 

He arrived home and crawled his way miserably under the covers before a rank stench hit his nose. He sat up quickly, the bloodied corpse of a crow was splayed messily across his pillow, crawling with worms and tiny white maggots, like the sprinkles on a morbid death cake.

He turned to the side of his bed and vomited promptly off the edge. The room grew immediately cold and Harry's vision turned black with the drop in temperature. A rattling whisper sounded by his ear.

 _"Boo motherfucker."_ said Death. 

 


	2. Biting The Dust

**WORM FOOD**

 

o O o

 

CHAPTER TWO- Biting The Dust

 

 "Of all things, at least tell me this." Harry began. "Why did you have to leave me in Draco Malfoy's office. I could have been asked to resign! I wouldn't have had a job. You of all people should know how important my job is, seeing as how you have been stalking me for around eight years now." 

 _"It was for your own benefit young dodger,"_ Death rattled crossly and leaning back into the rocking chair by Harry's window. _"You have grown complacent. You fight for your job, and not much else. It is unbefitting of any who would call themselves my companion."_

Harry, only half listening as he vanished the dead crow from his bed and removed the sheets and pillows in preparation for a thorough wash, replied. "Maybe I am sick of fighting." 

Death chortled disdainfully. _"Maybe that is what you have told yourself. But from my vantage point all I see is a boy who was once a man, rather than the other way around."_

"Well I think that's it's ridiculous that your idea of manhood is reliant on fighting."

_"The fighting has nothing to do with it boy! It's the courage. And more pertinently, your lack of it."_

"That's both untrue and still ridiculous." Harry said, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel a trickle of doubt creep into his thoughts. He hadn't been cowardly, he never would be. But he had been impassive, maybe even ignorant. he meant it when he said that he did not think Death should equate masculinity with courage or fighting, but bravery had always been one of the gryffindor values that he had held close. Harry had not put much effort into getting rid of Death (even though he had been being plagued since he was a teenager), he had not told Hermione about what had happened with Ron, and he had repressed his feelings for Draco Malfoy until he had felt some certainty that they would be returned, but that had not worked.

No, instead of Draco Malfoy falling into his arms, or vica versa, Draco Malfoy was, at this very minute, having a jolly good time with Cho Chang. _Not that I care_ , Harry thought bitterly before he realised that he was repressing his true feelings again.

He did care. He cared very much. And that, he knew he needed to be able to admit, at least to himself.

Harry sighed. He still did not trust Death, but he supposed that in the long time that they had known each other the only aggressive act Death had ever tried to commit against him was one singular, inconvenient apparition. The consequences of which Harry had been able to escape relatively easily, and without major harm to his career or well-being.

_"I can see into your thoughts young dodger, the fog lifts. It is time."_

"Time for what?" Harry asked tiredly, the blood-suckers from earlier hadn't quite worn off, and now that he had allowed himself to realise the full extent of his feelings for his boss, the idea of Cho and Malfoy kissing was making him sick with jealousy. A feeling only exacerbated by his intoxication and brief hope. _Foolish_ hope, that he had a chance of his feelings being reciprocated. 

 _"Time for you to learn... But first, sleep."_ Death commanded, and upon hearing the words Harry promptly fell into a deep slumber where he stood. Death concentrated his magic carefully for a moment and the bed was suddenly remade, with soft sheets and blankets that would always be at the perfect temperature.

After a second, Harry, still completely asleep, walked over to the bed and tucked himself in, mumbling a little as he went. Death smiled, he did not know what it was about Harry that had inspired his paternal side, but he had certainly never taken such a liking to any of the other dodgers he had come across in his vast life time. They had all been arrogant, and had tried to chain him, thinking themselves to be true 'masters of death'. The fact of the matter was that no one could master Death, he would come for everyone eventually, all who feared him were right to, all who crossed him would eventually cross over, and all who accepted him would perhaps be afforded a more comfortable journey if they were polite.

If Harry were pleasant with him later, perhaps he would explain the crow. An ill omen naturally, and the final straw that had Death realising that he would need to confront Harry, step in properly and teach the boy how to control his magic again. Years passed quickly for Death, but even he knew that his fondness for the boy had tricked him in to turning a blind eye, had allowed him to rest and take stock and, perhaps worst of all, grow fond. 

He quickly conjured a letter in Harry's handwriting, one that would explain some mortal illness and exempt the boy from work the next day. Death then appeared by the bin outside and with a snap of his rotting fingers, woke the crow. It crooked it's head at him, and shook the maggots from it's wings before snatching the letter with it's decaying beak and flying out of a closed window. 

Death returned to the upstairs bedroom, and sat by Harry's bedside. He would teach the boy then, something he should have concentrated on some time ago. But for now he would watch, and he would prepare.

 

 

When Harry woke the next day he felt more well rested than he had in a long time, there was a heaviness in his limbs that he knew indicated a good sleep and the sheets had left prints in the soft of his arms where he had been pressing against them all night. He sat up slowly and stretched, blinking in the unexpected warmth. Sun shone through the windows, tinting the room in warm, golden shades and curling around Harry like a lovers embrace. It had been a long time since he had woken up to sunlight. He often woke early from dreams, or death, or not at all if he hadn't been able to sleep. Besides those reasons, Harry had grown adjusted to and fond of gloomy London who did not mind showering her occupants with gloom and wet most days, yes, the sun was a pleasant surprise. 

Less pleasant when he was running late, realised Harry when he glanced down at his watch. 10 am! He was three hours past time for work. He stood up quickly and his stomach lurched, Harry quickly swore off alcohol as he ran hurriedly down the hall to the bathroom, snatching clothes from the indoor hoist as he rushed to shower. He jumped quickly into the claw foot tub and lowered the overhead nozzle. Hermione had been here then, Harry thought darkly. She couldn't help herself, she readjusted the damn thing every time she showered. 

_"Don't bother."_

"Fuck." Harry swore, dropping the soap and slipping on the ceramic floor of the bath, he braced himself quickly, one hand against the wall and heart beating fast. "Do you have to always do that? You could always wait outside you know. Or maybe knock first!?"

_"And where would be the fun in that young dodger? Besides, I find myself growing weary. It has been years. You need to learn some control unless you want the dead following you wherever you go."_

"Doesn't it already." Harry said, sarcasm lacing his tone, and looking pointedly at Death.

_"I am referring to corpses, not my charmante self. You will learn, and you will begin to do so today."_

"No, I will not, I am going to work." Harry replied, defiant. 

This defiance was not borne of any particular fear of death, or indeed Death. His usual fears of succumbing to dark magic and becoming as corrupted and evil as Tom Riddle had been shunted to the wayside in favour of his worries about where things now stood between himself and Draco. He did not want to miss a day and allow Malfoy to think he was staying home nursing hurt feelings or something of the like, he'd die first in fact. 

_"Wrong. Sit."_

Harry felt his limbs tingle to obey. It wasn't the almost hypnotic acquiescence that came from the imperious curse, the type that made biddableness and pliability seem akin to a comfort or a gift, rather, his body and his muscles had decided to obey a new master regardless what he thought. Like a puppet on a string. 

He looked down at his body in a panic as it sat down in the bath, legs crossed like a student. For the first time in a long time since Death had begun intruding on his privacy Harry felt self conscious about his body and wished he could cover it. He tried to stand again, but found that his legs were not responding, he felt his heart rate increase and his hands began to tremble slightly with adrenalin. 

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked slowly. 

 _"Teaching."_ Death replied promptly.  _"You will learn to understand your magic or you will be forever plagued, and forever a danger to those around you. A non-magic mortal might compare you to a dynamite with a short fuse. It is just a matter of time."_

Harry stared up at him from the bath. Feeling vulnerable in his nudity and his bared stomach. 

"Let me get some clothes on and maybe I will consider listening to you."

_"You had your chance young dodger, you chose not to take it. Now you will pay attention wether you like it or not."_

Harry tried to calm himself with slow breathes. Logically he did not think he was in danger, knew that he and Death were friends of a sort. It was simply the sudden display of power that had caught him off guard, and also the remembered, dreaded, feeling of being trapped. 

"Fine. Teach."

_"Okay. First lesson. Your actions, as in anything, have consequences."_

Harry rolled his eyes. "Naturally."

_"And so do your thoughts and your desires and the concentration of those thoughts and desires."_

Harry frowned. "What do you mean."

Death sighed. He supposed not everyone could be a fast-learning student, and it was relatively new material, not something the boy would have learnt at Hogwarts.

_"Since you killed Tom Riddle have you ever been bothered by a mosquito, or any other small pestilence?"_

"Of course, there was a rat a few weeks ago, d'you remember, Hermione screamed but when I came in it had already-" realisation dawned, Harry's eyes widened as his thoughts grappled with some greater truth, some more morbid context to the situation. "Dead. It was dead. Did you do that?" he asked anxiously, desperate for innocence. "You did that didn't you."

 _"No I did not."_ said Death gravely. 

"I can't have killed it, just by, not wanting Hermione to be in danger. I can't have. No wand, no words, it's not possible." Harry's hands continued to shake.

Death responded by whistling, a loud, shrill sound that sent flies within a mile radius buzzing. A rattle came from the window and it unlatched and opened with Death's subconscious magic. Sitting on the sill was a skeletal crow, the one from last night that he had put in the bin Harry realised. His stomach rolled nauseously. 

_"It is very possible, most things are. The magic within your hands now is an element of it's own. It is not light and it is not dark. Death is life, and it is in your hands. You must learn how to use it properly."_

"Right..." Harry said, rubbing a hand on the side of his face, Death wondered if the boy even realised that he had broken the control Death had over his limbs with his intense desire to be free. 

_"Concentration is important of course, if you don't concentrate on the wish it shouldn't work. With the rat, your desire to protect Hermione from harm immediately killed it, but that is not how it always works. In most cases you will need to focus your concentration to a particular point, and more sharply. I suggest you think about the last time you were bothered by a mosquito, yes. It has been a while. Because you have wished, in your mind, very clearly, not to be bitten by them. Even though you have spent time where other people where bitten profusely."_

Harry remembered the last time he had gone to play quidditch with Neville and some other friends. They had been flying near some swamp land and most of them had gone away with itchy, pink lumps. Harry had not. He must have killed them then, the mosquito's, by not wanting them to bother him. How could he have- a worse thought crept up on him. 

"Could I have killed a person, by my desire to have an interesting case, am I murdering people?" He asked, tone calm but with an edge of the hysterical.

Death looked at him, face impassive. _"It's something to think about."_

Harry let out a sob, and the now cold bath water splashed about him. How could he have, he had never, never wanted to be a murderer. Even the death of Tom Riddle, while the best solution, had been a gruelling experience for him. He remembered people cheering and smiling after he had done it, people he did not know coming to embrace him with words of gratitude and sickening joy in the face of death. Congratulating and thanking him, all Harry had wanted to do was weep; for life, and for humanity. Tom Riddle had been a disgusting example of humanity; but human he had been. 

A cold hand gripped his shoulders. _"It has not happened yet. However you must understand that it could easily happen still, unless you learn."_

But Harry was inconsolable. There was a rage building in him. "No! I will not be this killing thing again. I will not be told what to do and how, I will not be different to everyone else or set apart or destined. It's bollocks. I'm Harry! Nothing more."

Out of Harry's line of vision, the crow on the sill drooped as his anger grew, it's bony wings sagged against it's fragile ribcage and it's head dipped low.

"Calm down young dodger. Concentrate."

"Concentrate!? FINE!" Harry screamed. The crow dropped lifelessly to the floor, skull cracking against the tiles. Death winked frenetically in and out of reality like a candle in the wind. "I want you gone, I want it with all of my heart. I want not to be different, I want not to be so burdened, I want you to leave me alone!"

Death flickered completely out and Harry was left sobbing against the tiles, the corpse of the crow lay without glory on the floor. 

"I wish I were different." Harry said quietly through tears. "I wish I were different, and not me."

 

 

Hermione found him there hours later. She disposed of the crow sensibly and Harry, roused from the mood that had so violently taken him felt ashamed but relieved that she had had to in the first place. He dried himself off and got dressed into some comfortable jeans and a worn jumper. He didn't bother shaving, didn't quite trust himself with a razor. 

"Are we going to talk about it?" Hermione asked later, as they sat by the fire in their lounge room with a warm pot of tea and fifteen years of unconditional friendship between them. 

Harry looked up at her, she was looking down at her book pointedly but her expression was earnest. Surprisingly so considering the amount of times she had asked him that question only to be rebuffed over the years. 

One this night however, Harry had a different answer. 

"Yes." he said. She looked up, eyes wide but supportive. "Yes, I think we are."

And they did. He told her about how he had felt when Tom Riddle had died, how he had wanted to either crawl out of his skin or bruise it, how he had quit the aurors partly to avoid the temptation of doing just that, and partly because he was so passionate about medicine. How when Death had appeared he had been scared, and hateful and lonely. How he had come to feel about Draco Malfoy. How Ron had attacked him at work and about the crow and about his magic and about how he needed to learn how to properly control it.

When he was done it was well past midnight, and Hermione launched herself at him.

"Harry, why didn't you tell me you stupid, stupid man!" she exclaimed, gripping him tight and burying her face by his shoulder.

"Sorry." he said through a mouthful of her hair, wondering the same thing. He felt lighter and less burdened and was starting to wish he had done so sooner. 

"Right," she said, sitting back. "First of all we are going to need to go to the library."

He smiled. "No surprises there then."

She nodded, lips pursed. "You shouldn't go to work tomorrow, it's too dangerous. If you accidentally want the wrong thing or touch the wrong person-"

She paused, and her face lit with sudden realisation. 

"Harry! I have most certainly touched your skin in the last six years."

Yes, she had. He remembered it well, she had reached out fussily to brush his hair out of his eyes before some date he couldn't remember before he could stop her and then there had been that sort of lethargic roll over sensation, the one he instinctively knew represented a death by natural causes, it had been laced with a warmth that had Harry satisfied she would be ready to go when the time came.

"But then you know! You know how I-" she gulped.

He smiled at her. "Hermione, don't worry about it. Really don't."

She studied his face for a moment before nodding. "Of course."

"I'm going to work though, I can't miss another day and I'm pretty sure I won't kill anything by accident, it's not really the type of thing I go around wanting. The only thing I have to be careful with is the ambition thing, Death implied that if I wanted work to be more interesting, if I wanted it enough I mean, then the world might adjust itself accordingly."

Hermione stared at him. "Harry, that's... that's amazing."

He looked at her, like she was insane.

"Not like that!" she cried, indignant. "From a research point of view I mean, it's absolutely unchartered territory. The very idea that you could change the course of fate simply by a whim! Well. I'm glad that it's you in any case. I don't know how I'd feel if it were someone like... Dolores Umbridge, for example."

"Yes, thankyou Hermione." Harry replied dryly. "Always a relief to know I am a step above Dolores Umbridge on the stairs of morality."

Hermione pinked, and hit him in the back of the head with her book. "You know what I'm trying to say."

"Yes." Harry agreed, leaning back on the couch and shutting his eyes. "I do."

 

 

He woke again a few hours later with Hermione's foot nudging him in the face. 

"Stop it." he whined. 

"No." she replied, poking her big toe against his cheek. "We have to get up and go to work like adults now."

"What time is it?" he groaned. 

"Six, I have an hour and a half and you have an hour."

"Did we sleep out here then?"

Hermione snorted. "No, we both went back to our separate beds and that's why you're waking up in the lounge room with a sore neck."

Harry took a moment to assess the feeling in his neck. "You know that's quite uncanny, my neck is actually sore."

"Well at that angle who can blame it." she sniffed. "Poor thing."

"Breakfast?" he asked. 

"Are you cooking?"

"I can't believe you need to ask." he replied.

A pillow landed on his face. "I'm not that bad." Hermione snapped.

Harry raised his eyebrows under the pillow.

"Stop making that face."

He grinned. Breakfast then.

He got up and went into the kitchen, making sure to glare at the bunsen burner. His back pack, which had apparently been kipping under the table began yapping at his feet. He leaned down to pet it, running his hand carefully over the pockets. It rumbled in contentedness. 

He prepared another kettle of tea and went about preparing some scrambled eggs, chopping the tomato and onion up small the way he liked it. 

When it was done, Hermione came down the stairs, dressed in her work robes and hair pulled neatly back. 

They went out to the verandah and chatted about work until Hermione, grinning from behind her teacup, coyly asked.

"So, Draco Malfoy?" 

He groaned. "Shut up, shut up, shut up and-"

"Shut up?" she finished with glee. 

He glared his best glare. She softened. "You know I'm fine with it, I've gabbed with him before anyway, he came to have lunch with Blaise one day in the middle of an experiment and we chatted for a while."

"About what?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"Small talk mostly, the weather, our careers, that kind of thing. He's grown up though, even I could see that. Leadership suits him now."

Harry nodded, it did. As a child people had followed Draco, in part due to his fathers reputation, but mostly because he had the qualities of a born leader, he had no problem speaking to crowds, and when he did he was compelling, it was just that the things he said now had far more merit than they had ever had when he was eleven. 

"Gods, small talk with Draco Malfoy, that's a novel concept."

"What do you talk about then?" 

"We don't."

"What, talk?" Hermione asked. "Surely you talk."

"Well, I suppose, but it's all very formal, and insufferable, and work related. Do you know he ordered me to attend that ministerial museum opening the other day! He right well implied that Theo wasn't a good enough departmental representative, even though Theo has pretty much single-handedly assured our good reputation in the ministry."

"Maybe that's his way of flirting Harry, all passive aggressive and kind of obnoxious."

Harry snorted. "Please. If he was flirting he wouldn't have ordered me to go somewhere I have to pander to greedy officials, something most people know I hate."

"Maybe he would if he thought it would be the only place he could talk to you socially." Hermione suggested.

"Hmmph."

"Something to think about." she said in a sing song voice, spreading her eggs across a piece of toast and cutting it into neat little soldiers.

"Not really." he replied skeptically, handing her some tomato sauce, she smiled and promptly drowned her eggs in it. 

"And he did kiss you." Hermione added slyly.

"On the back of the neck." he replied, looking at her disbelievingly. 

"That's quite intimate Harry. I think it's worth considering."

"Yes, maybe," Harry frowned. "If he hadn't been attached at the tonsils with Chang not five minutes later." he responded. Putting his tea down and brushing crumbs away from the side of his mouth.

She looked crossly at him, and pursed her lips. Harry mentally prepared himself for a stern talking to. He was not disappointed.

"Harry James Potter. Consider this; you kiss someone you like very much, a universal signal that you are interested, and instead of making any positive affirmation, of any kind, they run away. Leaving you cold and alone on a heartless dance floor in front of all your employees. What would you think? How would you feel?"

Oh. Bad probably. Then again, it wasn't exactly a situation Harry had ever liked to put himself in, he was careful with emotions like that, always had been. Setting himself up for failure or humiliation had never seemed appealing and so his usual methods of seduction involved ignoring his feelings and waiting for them to come to him. 

"Not good." He guessed.

"Ergo, Draco, after you ditched him, may have been feeling...?"

He thought for a moment. If it were him he probably would have left the floor and gone home in a strop so he didn't have to deal with any of the emotional repercussions or the awkwardness of running into the person again. But this was Draco, he had never thought of Draco as the type of person who might let himself be emotionally compromised. He always seemed so cool these days, often annoyed but rarely on any deep level. Harry remembered in school how even the slightest hint of an insult had sent Draco's hackles rising, and still he had always gotten over it eventually and come back for more. Now, agitations seemed to just slide off him like water over a ducks back. He simply didn't care or let them bother him. Then again, if Draco actually liked Harry, and had felt rejected...

"Disheartened."

"Precisely." she replied. "Just think about it Harry. I want you to be happy you know, very much."

Hermione levitated the dirty dishes and charmed the tablecloth clean. "I'm off, I'll see you later all right?"

"Fine." said Harry. "Have a good day."

The morning moved slowly then, he showered, dressed, and prepared his things so quickly that he had twenty minutes to spare. Reflecting that Theo would probably be mighty peeved with Harry for not warning him that he wouldn't be at work yesterday, Harry decided that a token of regret might be in order. Perhaps a bouquet.

He spent the time wandering around the yard gathering a bouquet before sitting back down on the verandah. The garden was something of a work in progress. A somehow functional mess of both his and Hermione's ideas. The small vertical gardens, all in carefully measured rows that grew potions ingredients and herbs, were all Hermione. So too were the neat crops of vegetables and fruits, all in rows and all incredibly useful when Harry was in a cooking mood.

Harry liked to grow the wildflowers, what Hermione called weeds. Colourful corn florets in vibrant hues of blue and yellow, bright perennials that had crept their devious way into Hermione's strawberries, but were somehow cohabiting, and Harry's personal favourite; between some stately oaks and leafy ferns, was the pond.

When they had first taken on the garden it had been empty and full of dead leaves. Now, it sparkled in the soft morning light, surrounded by damp, mossy stones and reeds. On the surface of the pond grew the lilies. Brilliant white things, they opened every morning, baring their hearts and saying hello to the world. They were so simply alive, and Harry loved them. 

 

 

 

"Potter." a drawling voice called before he could get on the elevator and head down to his and Theo's work room.

Malfoy then, he would recognise those snooty tones anywhere, he adjusted his gloves self-consciously before turning around.

"Malfoy." he greeted with a clipped voice and a nod. He clutched the bouquet a little tighter. His back pack growled at his heels.

Malfoy looked down at the noise. "My, what a completely feral bag."

Harry too looked down, wondering what Malfoy could possibly be seeing that would turn him against such a perfectly adorable, well-behaved piece of sentient storage. 

The bag was drooling thread and gnashing it's zipper aggressively. 

"Woah boy," Harry said placatingly. "It's just Malfoy."

Malfoy's eyes went hard. "And it's _just_ against policy to have bags like that. Get rid of it Potter."

"What? No!" cried Harry, who had grown rather fond of the thing. "Since when? Why?"

The bag, which seemed to agree with his anguished sentiments suddenly lunged at Malfoy's calf, biting down on his leg and growling loudly. 

Malfoy made an indignant squawking noise before grabbing it by the straps and hauling it off, holding it at arms length. It continued to growl at him.

"It tried to bite me Potter. It's mean and dangerous."

"You're not even hurt Malfoy." said Harry heatedly, supposing that Malfoy was being purposefully spiteful. "Anyway, you provoked him."

He demonstrated this by reaching out and stroking the bag. "You're a lovely boy aren't you. You wouldn't hurt anyone unless they deserved it." he cooed as he pet the bag, it purred happily. "See!" Harry added, tone triumphant. 

"My decision stands. As head auror I am confiscating this creature until further notice." Malfoy ordered. And with that he stalked away with the back pack howling in his grip, leaving Harry alone and furious, wondering what Malfoy had wanted in the first place. 

 

 

 

"Malfoy kidnapped by bag." Harry said angrily as he slammed into the work room with a scowl, Theo looked up from where he was writing out some parchment work.

"You must understand that I am angry with you for being a rubbish friend who refuses to tell me anything, like why they are stuck in chimneys or when they are going to miss work." he started, voice cool. Then he looked up and caught sight of Harry and the flowers. "But if those are for me then I may find it within my heart to forgive you darling." 

Harry grinned. Theo was difficult company, but for some reason Harry thought he was hilarious and so it worked. 

"Malfoy kidnapped my bag." he whined again.

"Flowers." Theo demanded, making grabby hands.

Harry rolled his eyes and tossed him the bouquet. 

"Oooh, I always love me some daffodils. You're getting better at this flower assemblage business Harry."

Harry snorted, thinking of all the other bouquets he had had to prepare to soothe Theo's ire over the years. 

"Well, it's the practice that does it you see." Harry said as he went over to the bulletin board to see what work he had missed.

He realised when he was halfway through reading the thing that he hadn't concentrated on or understood a word of what he had just read.

"Malfoy kidnapped my bag." he repeated for the third time.

"Scoundrel. Why?"

"Something to do with some departmental policy that I'm quite sure doesn't exist."

"We're not even aurors though!" Theo cried, affronted on Harry's behalf.

"Yes, but we are technically an auror sub-department, so we fall under his stupid jurisdiction when it comes to cases of bag removal and the like."

"But your bag is so cute."

"I know." said Harry grumpily. "It tried to bite him and everything."

"The sign of a well trained bag." replied Theo solemnly. "What a bastard."

"Complete and utter." he agreed miserably.

"I think we should all stop pretending that you don't want to fuck him." said Theo calmly. His lurid grin belying his tone.

"Theo!" Harry spluttered. "I do not! Imagine- Malfoy? No."

"Harry Potter, you sweet, young child of the springtime. Listen to teacher. You so do, and I have tried my best to ignore it because Malfoy is a self-righteous prig, but since you have decided to come in here throwing all of your unresolved sexual tension about the place I have no choice but to suggest you do something about it."

Harry ran a hand through his chair and sat up on the empty autopsy table, legs dangling a little.

"It's no use, he's into Chang."

There was a beat, and then Theo laughed so hard Harry thought he might cough up a lung.

"What?" he asked. "What's funny?" 

Theo swivelled around in his chair to face Harry, mirthful tears streaming down his cheeks. This was something of a habit with Theo, Harry had a theory that because Theo was the type of man who refused to cry when he was in pain his body took the cathartic opportunity to get rid of some tears whenever something amusing happened.

"Chang and Malfoy! What a thought. I take it you went home early the other night then?" Theo asked.

Harry nodded.

"Unlucky for you then, you missed the rejection of a century. You've got to give it to Chang though, she is one determined bitch."

"What happened?" asked Harry, interest piqued. 

"Oh, just your casual come on, the only thing was that Chang made the mistake of telling everyone what she was going to do before she did it, so when she went and planted a snog on his unwilling mouth we were all subtly watching. Then, Malfoy like, gently, pushed her off of him with the most revolted look on his face. Half of us were worried he was going to sick up in his mouth."

Harry tried to ignore the vicious glee he felt at this news. Maybe he did have a chance after all.

"What have I missed with work?" he asked.

"Oh, just your usual, we have a Jane Doe in the stasis chamber but we've got some parchment work to catch up on before that so I scheduled the autopsy for later this afternoon. The aurors aren't desperate for it though, no one has even tried to pick up the case yet."

"What, why not?" The aurors were usually all over the high profile mysteries like that. It was what they lived for.

Theo looked at him carefully then. "Three reasons. The crime scene was gory. Very, very gory, like something out of that chainsaw movie you showed me. Second reason; she's just a kid. I know a lot of them up there don't like the kid cases, triggering and all that. Third, because she has a tattoo on her arm that is highly unpleasant to most of those do-gooders, if you catch my drift."

"Dark mark?" Harry murmured.

"Yup."

"Shit. How old is she then?"

"We think around sixteen."

"Then she would have only been young when she got it. She wouldn't have had a choice, they can't possibly blame her for it!"

"And you of all people should know prejudice isn't something you can apply logic to."

"Fair enough, but she's just a kid. Merlin." 

Harry himself did not like the 'kid cases' as Theo referred to them, to many unpleasant memories, and they inspired too much anger in him if the child didn't make it out alive. There was a lull in the conversation as they both considered what they had to say to each other.

"Theo, do you know what's happening with Ron."

"Auror Weasley," Theo began, face hardening in such a way that Harry knew meant he didn't think Ron was much deserving of the title. "Is being held in Cell A2, he is refusing to answer questions and has been silent since Malfoy and Divilier shoved him in there the other afternoon. He'll be on suspension at the very least though. Personally I've got my fingers crossed for a full termination of his title, badge removal and everything."

"Theo! Ron loves his job."

"Harry! _Ron_ tried to kill you, that is kind of against the laws he has sworn to uphold."

Harry sighed. He wasn't sure if he was ready to share his suspicions yet, suspicions that Ron was acting against his will. He wasn't even sure if maybe he was projecting, assigning details and connotations to events that he only wanted to exist because they would make him happier, and make Ron a good guy still.

"Still, he's one my best friends."

"Everyone up at the Hub is angry at him though Harry, even if he is allowed back I don't think he will be treated well. It might be better if he just left. Frankly I'm surprised you haven't been asked to press charges. Malfoy is many things, but he is not the type to let an attempted murder slide so long."

"I wasn't here yesterday, he couldn't have. But if he asks me about it today I want you to know that I'm not going to."

Theo stood up jerkily.

"You will. You can't let someone hurt you like that and then be nice to them, or let them get away with it. He doesn't deserve that."

Harry knew in that moment that Theo was thinking about his father.

"It's not the same Theo. It's not the same. Ron is not abusive, and I don't want to hurt Hermione by having any kind of legal battle with him that might leave him behind bars for life."

"Ron is not abusive? He's not usually physically abusive to you Harry. But emotionally? I think you and Hermione ought to have a think about what you have let him get away with over the years."

Ron wasn't abusive. Harry was sure of that. It was true that they had afforded him a lot of leeway, but the three of them had things between them that meant leeway needed to be afforded. Besides that, Ron had had to deal with a lot of grief. Fred and Ginny dying in the space of a few years had been heartbreaking for the entire Weasley family, but Ron had, in age, been between the two, and he had taken it to heart. He had been very, very close with both of them.

Harry sighed, these things were difficult to think about, and he still felt partially responsible for Ginny's death. Rationally he knew that even if he had clung to her, like he sometimes wished he had, she would still have crossed paths with Dean Thomas, and she would still have died having his baby. 

"So much has happened lately Theo, it's a lot isn't it."

Theo only nodded, and they went about their work.

 

 

 

Harry was busy drawing a careful diagram of how a hereditary curse, like the one used on Eliot Musgrave might look on a body or a specialised diagnostic scan when their alarm went off. Someone was approaching. Both of them were busy working so they did not have to posture, but they did not speak as they waited for the visitor to enter.

There were footsteps in the hall and whoever it was did not bother to knock, the door was opened. 

"Malfoy." Theo greeted impassively.

Harry only gave a curt nod, still upset about his bag. 

"Nott," Malfoy replied cordially, then he eyed the bouquet which Theo had arranged in a conjured crystal vase. "Nice flowers." he sneered.

"What do you want Malfoy, we are very busy." snapped Harry waspishly. Why did he have to be so rude about everything? He didn't like Harry's bag. He didn't like Harry's flowers, despite that kiss he didn't seem to like Harry very much at all, and he was so _bossy_.

"Nott, can you manage that Jane Doe autopsy on your own?"

Theo made a sound in the affirmative.

"Good, Potter, you're coming with me."

"What? Why?" Harry asked. 

"Because I am your boss and I say so."

Honestly, Malfoy was such a prize fucking wanker. Harry rolled his eyes and huffed.

Malfoy smirked and turned to leave, but not before adding. "Meet me in the atrium in fifteen minutes, don't wear your lab robes."

 

 

 

_Don't wear your lab robes._

That was fine, Harry wouldn't want to get them dirty anyway, not if they were going to go fight bad guys in the mud like proper aurors. Back in the day Harry supposed the idea might have excited him. He had loved adventures and mysteries when he was a child, the thrill of the chase had always been fun for him, but when he was a child he had had nothing to lose. He could afford to get himself in to dangerous situations because for the longest time no one had given a shit. It had taken him many a year to realise that since he had started up at Hogwarts maybe a few people did, and that more than anything, had made him start taking his own life more seriously.

The thought of disappointing Hermione, or Teddy, or Theo, or Ron, or Malfoy, or even Death had gotten him a bit more cautious. He now found his mysteries in his surgical work, his adventures in crappy pulp novels. He supposed the thrill of them had been tempered somewhat by the fact that he was hanging out with Death so often, some would say that was adventurous enough. 

He hung his lab robes up on a hook by the back of the door. "I don't know when we'll be back, so I'll just say bye now in case I don't see you until later." he said to Theo.

"Fine, fine. I don't need you distracting me anyway."

Harry rolled his eyes. And pulled his casual gloves out of his pocket. He removed the white elbow length ones he wore with his lab robes and replaced them with the small black pair he wore out and about, they were cotton and a little sturdier than the fine one's he used whilst working.

Harry made his way up the the atrium, having a conversation about the weather with Merv on the way up. When he arrived Malfoy was already waiting for him.

"You're late."

Harry snorted. "By what? Two seconds?"

"Ten actually." Malfoy corrected, looking up from his flashy platinum watch.

"My sincerest apologies, next time I shall fly through the floors to avoid being waylaid by the elevator that, might I remind you, is beyond my control."

Malfoy turned on his heel, ignoring him, and without even bothering to check if Harry was following him, stalked off towards one of the fireplaces. 

Harry almost ran to catch up. 

"We're going to Mannix Moor. Do keep up." said Malfoy as he pulled a small satchel from his pocket and poured some green powder into his hand carefully. 

Malfoy floo-ed himself out in a flash of green flame. 

After a moment, Harry followed, carefully imitating Malfoy's precise enunciation of their destination.

The first thing Harry saw of Mannix Moor upon his arrival was the floor as he tripped over nothing and stumbled out of the fireplace. 

He heard a deep chuckle and stood quickly, blushing hot and brushing dust from his clothes. 

Malfoy simply looked impatient. But beside him was a jovial looking man, slightly older than they were, with rosy cheeks and a broad brow. He was heavy-set, even taller than Draco, though with a more outdoorsy look. 

"Potter, this is my cousin Albanus Abraxas Malfoy. Albanus, this is Harry Potter, he works for me."

Harry ignored the brief flash of annoyance over how he had been introduced and nodded at the man who was apparently Draco's kin.

They did not look very much like each other Harry thought. Their height and proud stance their most similar qualities, other than that perhaps there was a hint in Albanus's jawline, a clue in the set of his lips. Their colouring however, was wildly different. Where Draco was one of the palest people Harry had ever met, with white skin and snowy hair, Albanus had clearly spent time in the sun, he was freckled across the cheeks and had tawny hair and golden skin. 

"Nice to meet you, call me Al." Albanus said, throwing out a hand to shake.

Harry grasped it heartily, deciding already that he liked Al's open manner.

"Al." Harry greeted with a smile. 

Then he looked at Malfoy who was watching their interactions closely.

"Albanus is the son of my father's younger brother. His father, my uncle, died some years ago, leaving him the sole inheritor of the Malfoy farming estates. Albanus oversees a number of things important to the agricultural businesses held by the Malfoy family, things like crops and sheep."

"Sheep?" asked Harry, having trouble equating dirty, bleating, non-magical creatures with a Malfoy business.

"Yes Potter, sheep, they bleat and grow wool, not a complicated concept, you should familiar."

Al snorted. "It's nice to see you are just as charming with your workers as you are with me Draco."

"Politeness would be wasted on Potter, we have a particular history understand."

"Yes, I understand. Why, when we were younger I distinctly remember hearing all about-"

"In any case-" spoke Draco loudly over the top of him. "-The sheep are sick, and you need to heal them."

That gave Harry pause. "Malfoy, I'm not a vet. And I don't even have my equipment- you took my bag remember- and I, well. I simply don't know enough about the anatomy of a sheep to recommend anything a farmer wouldn't already know from living and working with them." Harry said looking at Al.

"It's not an anatomical problem Potter." replied Malfoy sighing. "They've been cursed."

"Oh," said Harry. "Well, that's different."

After that Al led them through the house and out onto the grounds, Harry couldn't help but think what a lovely property it was. Nothing like the almost gothic design of Malfoy Manor, a building that veritably reeked of darkness. No, the house on Mannix Moor was stately, but cosy. With warm cherry wood floors and an eclectic range of moving artworks, frames full of trees rustling in the breeze and one with a brilliant sunset over a grassy meadow filled with small cows.

Once outside, Harry looked in open admiration at the green paddocks and forests as far as the eye could see. The sky was bluer than blue and he could see an old barn in the distance as well as hay bails dotting the landscape. "It's beautiful." Harry complimented Albanus, who smiled with pride.

"Aye, it is."

"Do you have any idea who cursed your sheep?" he asked.

"No." the man admitted. "Though it's likely to be some Malfoy haters who are still upset about what Lucius did in the war. People who don't like me doing my business under a name that makes them think of him."

Harry saw, out of the corner of his eye, Draco's expression go tight and small.

"Okay, do you know what the curse is?"

"I think it's best Potter," said Draco. "that you simply diagnose the problem for yourself."

Harry acquiesced and they kept walking. 

 

 

 

Upon reaching the barn Harry noticed that there seemed to be an almost tangible scent of decay emanating from inside.

He looked at Al worriedly. "It's the sheep, the stench of the curse is what made me realise they were unwell. Makes me glad I herded them into the barn, otherwise that stink probably would have blown away and I would never have known, I would have just come down here one day and realised I'd lost the entire flock."

Al walked in carefully and he and Malfoy followed behind. Harry looked around in awe at the high, wooden beams and the very authentic looking machinery. Harry did not know a lot about farm work but the rustic look appealed to him, and he felt for some reason a distant longing to simply quit his job and live off the land. He shook the romantic thoughts away with a smile, he knew he would miss modern amenities and city life too much. There were days he caught the tube to work simply because he liked the bustle of the city streets.

Harry continued to survey the interior of the barn, he could see a number of what appeared to be wizarding tools used for tending sheep,self-regulated shears, combs and for some reason a large vat of what Harry surmised was a tar-like substance. Then he saw the sheep. At first he did not realise that it was the sheep he was looking at, they were so unlike any other sheep Harry had seen before, granted, most sheep he had seen were from picture books read in his local library as a child, or from that one time he was allowed to go on a school excursion that stopped to visit at a petting zoo.

Other than that, he was relatively new to the sheep sighting experience. Still, this flock was rather shocking.

Their voluminous fleece were vibrantly coloured in metallic, sparkly hues of gold and bronze, and the end of every strand seemed to crackle with electricity, or was that magic?

Albanus was taking in his reaction and smiling proudly. But the closer Harry looked at the sheep the easier it was to see the effects of the curse. Though they appeared fantastical at first glance, upon closer inspection they were the most miserable looking creatures Harry had ever laid eyes on. Their eyes were drooping and the moved slowly, their sickness was evident in the the thinness of their bodies even under their massive wooly coats. And Harry would in time, return his attention to the nature of the illness, but first he wanted to know about their fleece.

"Malfoy!" Harry exclaimed.

Both Draco and Albanus turned to look at him.

"I meant Draco" he supplied.

"You'd better just call him that then." said Albanus. "Otherwise we'll both spend the entire day confused and wondering to whom you are referring."

He looked over to Draco for permission. "It's fine."   _Draco_  confirmed.

Although the expression on his face seemed to say otherwise, and Harry already knew they would be returning to surnames upon their return to the Hub. He supposed Draco didn't want to compromise any of that air of professionalism he had worked so hard to build in the aurors. It was something Harry sometimes resented, it was like the professionalism was a barrier that Malfoy used to bar himself from the outside world, and Harry had always despised barriers of any kind.

Particularly those which destroyed any of the closeness he thought may have been garnered between them simply by surviving the same terrible circumstances. After the explosiveness between them as adolescents, uninspired snark and cordiality for cordiality's sake always seemed dull, lifeless. Like a lemonade that had lost it's bubbles and gone completely flat.

Harry nodded simply. "Draco then."

"I don't understand the point of your exclamation, but yes I am here."

"The sheep, I was wondering why they are dyed gold and bronze?" he asked, wonderingly. 

"What do you mean Potter, it's the magic in their fleeces, all magical sheep are some kind of metallic colour, the golden sheep are the finest." he said, pride colouring his tone. 

Draco made his way around the pen and in one quick motion jumped to sit on the top of the fence, it was a movement that denoted familiarity and Harry wondered how many times Draco had done that in his youth, how many times he had come to visit his cousin and they had played in the yard or with the animals.

"Magical sheep? I've never heard of such a thing." Harry said. Because he hadn't, and he was interested. 

Draco snorted. "That, Potter, is because you are a massive muggle. All wizarding sheep are magical, how did you think we produce magical wool?"

"I don't know." said Harry "I suppose I thought it was charmed that way."

Albanus snorted. "There are those who would try, but it's not very authentic, the wool would be of a lesser quality, unworthy of being made into proper wizarding attire, it is distasteful to try and I have higher standards for the type of product we yield here."

And there was that Malfoy snobbery Harry was so familiar with and had been expecting since he had been introduced. 

"Alright, yes, I'll inspect them now if that's okay."

He looked at Al for confirmation as he said this.

Al grinned at him broadly.

"Just get them better Doc, And maybe my good opinion of you will stay a good opinion."

At this comment Harry looked at him confusedly. Albanus and he had never met, there was absolutely no reason for the man to have a good opinion of him, especially taking into consideration family ties. Al smiled at Harry's confused look.

"Merlin knows I respect anyone who can cause cousin dearest here so much grief." he said, looking over at Draco and winking. If Harry weren't already half gone on Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, he might have considered the man rather rakish.

"Childish japes Albanus, long forgotten at that." Draco said good naturedly.

Though Harry noticed that his eyes were glinting and Albanus snorted. "I remember a little boy who just wouldn't shut up." he said, before changing his voice to fit around the precise syllables Draco was office-infamous for. "Albie, Albie, Potter did this, Albie Albie, Potter did that. He never stopped. My cousin, the great conversationalist."

"I was a brilliant conversationalist" Draco snapped. "Even at that age."

"Not from where I sat, one topic was all I ever heard about. It never stopped. He droned and he droned and he droned and he droned." Albanus taunted, until a small pellet of sheep shit hit his cheek, bouncing and landing on the ground beside him.

Albanus looked down at the pellet with raised eyebrows. And with a wordless charm that Harry only noticed because he was at the right angle, Albanus knocked Draco right off his perch. Draco went down laughing however, and Harry couldn't help but notice how nice he looked, even if he was splayed out in a pile of hay, laughing messily and more freely than Harry had seen maybe ever.

He roused himself from his thoughts when he heard one of the sheep bleat in pain. Shaken, he walked closer to the fence to prepare for his diagnostics. The sheep did not look any better close up, Harry noticed that the fur over their noses had worn thin and he could see the dark skin beneath. He felt a pang of sympathy for the innocent beasts.

Poor things. He began casting his diagnostic charms.

The first was designed to recognise malicious curses, curses that could harm a living creature; The type of curse that would have had to be cast individually on each and every sheep, but would be harder to remove.

The second diagnostic charm tested the nature of the curse, was it deadly, or merely uncomfortable? The translucent sheet that had spread out from his wand and over the sheep turned grey and began to wither. Deadly then.

The third charm determined the contagion of a curse, was it contagious? Yes, the charm quickly revealed in a bright orange flash that if the sheep came into physical contact with any other living creature, then that creature too, would contract the curse. How long the animal lived depended on it's individual biology, for example it would only take a second for a butterfly to die, but a horse might last a month before it felt any discomfort at all.

"Al," he asked. "Have you come into contact with any of the sheep?"

"No," he replied, leaning over the fence slightly. "I try not to if I think they're sick."

"Good, definitely don't come into any physical contact with them or any other animal if possible until they are healed. The curse is passed on by touch and you could easily contract it, I don't know how long you would live or if I would have time to heal you, so it's better just to avoid it."

"Fair enough." replied Al sagely. "How do we fix it?"

Harry grinned, this was his favourite part usually. "Well, luckily for you that's easy enough. All I have to do is cast a few curse banishing charms and the sickness should disintegrate on it's own. If you want them to heal any faster I recommend a trip to Sluggs and Jiggers for a general healing potion, just put two or three drops into their food each day and they should progress nicely."

Albanus left while Harry started up on the banishing spells. Draco however, stayed behind.

"I've been meaning to talk to you Potter."

"Oh?" said Harry, as he checked sheep no. 15 for any residual curse damage. "What about."

"One Ronald Weasley. How do you intend to proceed?"

"I'm not pressing charges against my best friend, if that's what you mean." Harry replied. Sheep no. 15 would be fine, he lowered her gently into the pen they had separated with a situational ward for the healthy sheep.

"What?" Draco snapped. "I can't make a quick conviction without your testimony! Do you want to draw this out? He attempted to murder you, and by my badge he _will_ be facing the consequences."

"I don't care Malfoy." Harry said, turning around to face him. "I'm not pressing charges."

"Well that's just idiotic. If you don't press charges he could be in the ministry holding cells for months on end!"

"Better than Azkaban." Harry sniped. Turning away to examine sheep no. 16. 

"Potter. Even without your testimony that's where he's going. Nott agreed to give a statement before the wizengamot, and I, as head auror, saw him attempt a murder. He's not getting away with it, despite any effort you may make to draw it out. It's outrageous! You're ridiculously misguided."

"You're being rude." said Harry, as though he cared about manners.

"And you're being a deluded child. Do you think you're being heroic? Or brave? Because from where I am standing allowing Ron Weasley a chance to go free is the most cowardly thing you could ever do."

Harry said nothing, couldn't quite formulate a response.

"Say nothing then, I hope you know that you're being foolish. I should sack you." 

In the silence that followed they both knew that Draco had gone too far, for different reasons.

While Draco worried about Harry misconstruing his words as blackmail from an official, Harry worried about Draco not wanting him, and chided himself for doing so.

"Sorry, Potter. I didn't mean that."

Harry ignored him. There was silence except for the odd bleat as Harry continued working. 

"I don't understand you at all." he heard Draco utter as he handled sheep no. 202.

Harry wasn't sure he understood himself, but the growing anger that he could feel rising up in his gut was a familiar friend.

"Malfoy. Ron is not going to Azkaban, if it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure of that." Harry promised solemnly, eyes blazing as he turned once again to face Malfoy.

Malfoy was leaning back against a beam. The red piping on his black robes highlighting his frame and the understated strength in his lean shoulders.

He was the picture of courageous isolation until he stepped forward. Entering Harry's space with a few quick strides. They stared at one another for a long, weighted, moment. A moment, that broke as suddenly as it had started when Malfoy opened his mouth. The strange tension dissipated.

"And if it's the last thing _I_ do, Ronald Weasley is going to prison for his crimes. He tried to kill you. That is against the law. I will not have dangerous aurors running about in society like wild animals. I simply will not. I don't know how to make this clear to you, that he deserves everything that is coming to him for what he did. Maybe you are blind to it. But I swear to god, that I will never allow him to shirk his just rewards. Ronald Weasley will face Azkaban for his crimes. And I will be increasing security in the holding cells just in case you're getting any idea's. Are we clear?"

Harry snorted. He doubted Malfoy could keep him out, even if he did want to break in. Malfoy stepped forwards again, crystal eyes glinting.

"Are we clear?"

"Draco," Harry pandered, placing a sympathetic hand on Malfoy's shoulder and fluttering his lashes. "You couldn't stop me if you tried."

He stepped away, ignoring Malfoy's shell-shocked expression and got to work on sheep no. 203.

 

"Good opinion certainly maintained. You have my gratitude." said Albanus warmly.

Harry smiled. "It's my job. And you have a lovely home so it was nice to get out of the office."

Malfoy cleared his throat. "Well, as lovely as this has been I think we should be returning to that office. I'll be seeing you Albanus."

"Don't be like that Draco, stay for lunch!" Albanus cried. "I never get to meet your friends."

Harry, who rather liked Al, hoped he would agree despite the lingering awkwardness from his conversation with Draco.

"Just for a little while Draco." Al wheedled.

Draco looked conflicted for a moment, but finally nodded his ascent. "But Potter and I aren't friends." he added.

"Wonderful." said Al. Linking his arm through Harry's. "We'll be able to show this one some real Malfoy hospitality."

Draco huffed but followed them inside anyway.

The lunch was very simple, a broth Al had prepared for himself the night before. So they sat, enjoying good food in Al's cosy kitchen, Harry couldn't help but laugh as the man regaled him with wild stories of Draco's youth. Makeshift tree houses, broom races that on one occasion saw them swooping past a washing line and arriving home with altogether too many clothes. Draco being caught doing impressions of their grandfather's droning stories, and being punished with more of them. Not for the first time Harry wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a wizarding family, or in a family at all.

"-and then there was the time with the bird!"

Draco groaned. "Don't tell him that Al, Merlin, he's probably bored to tears already with you just jabbering on."

"Oh not at all," Harry grinned. "Tell me more."

"Okay, you'll like this one, it's adorable."

Draco's ears went pink.

"So, we were out walking one day, pretending to be Merlin and Arthur on some gallant quest-"

"Not at all, you were Saint George and I was the mighty dragon!"

"Draco I remember it clear as day, I was the great sorcerer Merlin and you were King Arthur, we were on a noble quest to find buried treasure or some such rot. Instead- this is the good part, pay attention Harry- We found a small bird. It's wings were broken, it was in pain so I suggested we put it out of it's misery like I had seen my father do with some of the animals- but Draco- soft hearted piece of city stock that he was, refused. He picked it up gently, and held it carefully in a pouch in his shirt and we walked all the way back to the house at a snails pace because Draco was scared he might hurt it if he walked to fast."

Harry was grinning, he could imagine the story vividly, a young Draco determined to get home, stubbornly refusing to take the easy way out.

"Then what?" he asked.

"Well," said Al grinning."We made it home, and young saint Draco insisted that his mother heal the thing- Narcissa did healing training you know, and so she fixed it up with a little splint and some pain reliever and Draco nursed it back to health."

"That's a nice story." Harry said.

"It's a shit story." said Draco.

"Is not."

"Is to."

"Is not."

"You haven't heard the ending yet." Draco said darkly.

"Oh," said Harry. "What happened?"

"Well," said Al, grinning between the two of them."It took weeks but the little darling was returned to full health. Draco felt that it was time to return it to the wilds, where it would be free to flit and frolic away all it's days in springtime bliss."

Draco snorted.

"But," said Al. "Twas not to be-"

"Because as soon as I let it fly from my hands a great big hawk swooped down and killed it. And that's the end of that." said Draco.

"Oh, I don't know, there was a lovely ceremony." said Al.

"Shut up." Draco snapped.

"Oh, don't get grumpy. It's still a nice story." said Al. "Harry agrees with me, don't you Harry?"

Actually Harry felt vaguely sick. How could he have been so stupid? How could he, a man who killed things just by existing, possibly be any good for a man who would walk for hours at a snails pace just to save a tiny bird?

Why, Harry had killed a bird just the other day. Twice. Two stones one bird.

"Lovely." he agreed somewhat automatically. There was a silence.

"Well, we'd best be off Albanus. Work to do and all." Draco said, standing. 

"Of course." agreed Al, inclining his head. "But don't forget to play a little as well cousin."

 

 

 

They were quiet on their way back to the Hub, the sniping from before had ceased, but so too had the sense of almost playful camaraderie. Now they were left with a strangely comfortable silence as they trudged down the hall to go fill out the required forms. As they approached the Hub the sound of music and raucous laugher grew louder and louder. Draco looked at him questioningly, but Harry didn't know anything about it, so he just shrugged.

 

Draco pursed his lips when they reached the huge wooden doors, and pushed them open with one movement. The Hub was a mess, a few diligent aurors seemed to be working in Muffliato bubbles in their booths but the majority had cleared away the desks in the centre of the room and were dancing to music they had wired through the speaker system. Draco slammed the door loudly. The music stopped and the aurors turned to look at him guiltily, the couples who had been dancing froze on the spot.

"So," Draco drawled loudly as he walked fully into the room with measured steps. "When the head is away, little aurors come out to play."

There was some tittering from the crowd. Harry spotted Chang smirking at him from the dance floor, where she was wrapped around Wriggle like a fast creeping vine. Harry had to grudgingly respect how quickly she could move on.

One brave soul from the back of the crowd called out confidently. "We were working boss. Just wanted to look good at the opening tomorrow night, of the ministerial museum." 

There were several chortles from the group, no one took the opening of the ministerial museum seriously, least of all the people who worked there.

"Working?" Draco asked, tone light. "I suppose you were all making sure, as a department of course, that your formal dancing was up to snuff, right? It's all about making the auror department look good, and useful, and competent, we don't want our reputation tarnished by any terrible dance moves do we now?"

"That's exactly it sir." came the voice of another brave soul.

"Well, I suppose you won't mind if I ask for a demonstration." Draco asked, smiling wickedly. The auror department was well-renowned for attracting half-bloods and muggleborns, it was the type of work they were vaguely familiar with seeing as it was in many ways equivalent to policing in the muggle world, and it did not often require an in depth knowledge of pureblood culture of wizarding history and traditions like some magical jobs did. This particular batch were not likely to be familiar with the wizarding dances put on at most ministry openings, Draco saw no harm in making one up. "I'd love for you all to dance traditionally to Blibbinger's Sonata."

"Blibbinger's Sonata you say? We can do that. Easy." 

Were all of Draco's aurors gryffindor? 

Several of the wiser couples on the dance floor groaned.

"But we'd love an example first boss, I think we could learn a lot of things from someone of your upbringing. This Blibbinger's Sonata could be one of them."

There was the slytherin then, self-preserving and more than ready to call him out on a lie. Draco however, was a Malfoy, and that meant he had his pride.

"Start the music please, Blibbinger's op.35 will do." he said, smirking.

Several aurors wolf whistled and the few couples on the make shift dance floor all moved away from the centre of the room. 

Draco walked forward confidently into the middle.

 

Harry watched on incredulous. 

He had always wished he could be so confident with a crowd, the truth was he just didn't like people enough. Quidditch was alright because you didn't have to interact with them, they just watched. But what Draco did with the aurors was true leadership, the type where people felt, under your guidance, as though they were a part of a community, and in turn worked twice as hard to prove they were worthy of it. Apart from a few shenanigans like what they had just walked in on the aurors rarely put a toe out of line. It was why Draco had come to be so quickly respected. 

The first bars of the music dropped lightly into the air like rain. 

And then Harry realised that a lot of people were looking at him. Why were they- oh. Draco Malfoy was standing with a hand outstretched, clearly asking him to dance. 

Harry's first instinct was to refuse. If he danced with Draco his feelings would only grow more confused, and yet for some reason, Harry felt himself wanting to be braver  than he had been in years. Then again, what if when it was over Draco never came near him again, what if-

"Come on Potter!" jeered a voice from the crowd. Several people laughed. Harry looked up at Malfoy who was staring at him intently, hand still outstretched, waiting. 

Harry remembered Hermione's words from the morning, and the idea that maybe Draco was just as nervous as he was was enough to bolster him forward. 

He took a few paces, grasped the warm hand in his and ignored the catcalls. 

"Alright Potter?" Draco murmured as his other hands came to rest, once again, on Harry's hip.

"You wish." he replied.

"Wrong line." said Draco. "It doesn't make sense like that."

"I feel like I should tell you that I don't know this dance. I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I." replied Draco. Harry looked up at him in panic. "But that's fine, we'll make it up as we go."

Harry had no time to agree as the music hit it's stride and they were off. Draco lead him around the floor like he was born to do it, and Harry let him. It was slow at first, almost sensual, but as they went on, twirling and stepping and moving the music picked up. Harry found himself almost in a bubble of hyper-awareness, he had forgotten about their audience but Draco in that moment was real to him. The spot on his jaw he had missed shaving was real, the way he gripped Harry's hip was real, he was so real it hurt. The song reached it's terrible, ecstatic crescendo just as Draco whispered in his ear.

"I'm going to dip you." 

And he did. Gravity disappeared for a moment and Harry wondered if he was falling, then he was being pulled up and held and there was loud applause and aurors were crowding around them to pat him on the back and give their compliments. It was overwhelming and Harry felt like he was buzzing out of his skin, so he excused himself. 

He couldn't believe he'd danced with Draco like that, in the Hub no less! He wondered if everyone had been able to tell how much he liked Draco, he was in a room full of trained observers after all, surely someone would have noticed. Half the time he felt as though it could be read in the line of how he held his body, or if someone looked too closely into his eyes they would sense it their; the greater truth about Harry Potter. 

He walked quickly into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. He stared at himself in the mirror. He looked the same as usual. Messy hair, sticking up in chaotic curls, some things would never change. Green eyes. Pale face. Dark brows. Ugly scars. The door opened and Harry was startled to see Malfoy. 

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, feeling oddly defensive.

"Looking for you I suppose."

"Well, you found me." Harry replied.

"Did I?" Malfoy asked, raising a quizzical brow.

Harry frowned. Everything seemed very confusing all of a sudden, his usual sense of purpose had left him. Go to work, ignore your feelings, ignore darkness, ignore death, that was the mantra he usually subscribed to, but now he felt as though somehow a scab had been torn off, there was a wound on the surface level, and he didn't know how to cover it back up.

"Do you like me Potter?" asked Malfoy, stepping closer.

"What?" asked Harry. "Sure, you're-"

"Don't patronise me, or yourself. Do you like me?" He asked, enunciating each syllable. "Because I do not wish to play games with you. You either do or you don't. Which is it?"

"I- I..." Harry struggled for words. "I like how you saved that bird." 

Draco stared at him, Harry felt, for a moment like a deer caught in headlights. Draco stepped closer again, they were now only a few inches apart. Harry looked up at Draco. 

"Tell me to stop." he said, raising a hand to touch Harry's cheek. He remained silent.

His other hand came to grip the back of Harry's neck and slid up to tangle in his hair. Harry remained silent.

They stared unblinking at each other as Draco hands explored his face and neck.

"We were mostly the same height as boys you know. " he said lowly. "But Malfoy's are always late bloomers and so it comes to this, I look down at you now and wonder how someone so small could have defeated the most powerful dark wizard of our generation."

Harry huffed a little but didn't argue it.

"I see your wrists," Draco continued, one hand gripping Harry's wrists and pinning them like butterflies to the wall above his head. "All fragile looking; and yet they have killed a man. In a less fucked up country, you would be in jail even if it was the right thing to do."

He leaned forward and licked the spot where Harry's neck and jaw met. Harry shuddered.

"Tell me to stop." Draco said again.

Harry thought about it for a moment, thought about saying the words, and Draco leaving, and him being left alone, shuddering against the bathroom wall. It was too horrible, too pathetic. 

"Don't stop." he said.

There was no immediate change, Draco did not gasp, or make some declaration of shock and try to ravish him like some dashing rake from a novel. Instead, he continued his slow exploration, clipped tone murmuring in his ear the whole while.

"I shouldn't even like you, and yet instead all I want is to kiss your mouth, or bite your neck, or hold you down and leave a bruise."

"Do it." Harry gasped, eyes fluttering. "Do it, please."

And so, finally, Draco did, with one hand fisted harshly in Harry's hair and the other holding his wrists captive, he bit and bloodied Harry's lips before soothing them over with his tongue and sweet nothings.

The hand gripping his hair, moved down his body until it reached his hip, and there it stayed as they kissed. It was dirty, and messy and there was spit on Harry's chin and his blood was on fire. The hand gripping his hip was tight enough to mark, but instead of being frightened Harry was delighted. _Yes_ , his body sung, _this is what I want_. 

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. They quickly broke apart smoothing down wrinkled shirts and in Draco case, sweeping his hair back carefully. Apart from a touch of pink around Draco's ear's it did not seem obvious what they had been up to, but Harry could see himself in the mirror and knew he looked wrecked. His hair was messier than ever, his lips were crimson, his eyes were slightly glazed and his clothes were in a state. He could not even remember Draco sliding his suspenders off his shoulders, but there they were, still clipped to his pants but hanging down by his thighs. He took a few calming breathes, pulled them back up and left the bathroom first. Wriggle saluted him with a grin as he left. With that, Harry decided he had had quite enough of auror action for one day. He would be scurrying his way back up to his and Theo's work room post haste. 

 

 

"OH MY MERLIN! HARRY POTTER YOU GOT SNOGGED!" yelled Theo almost as soon as he walked in to their room.

"What!? How do you know? Is it obvious." Harry asked, gripping his face.

"Nah, I just know your expressions well enough to recognise a snog face."

Harry groaned. "That's so embarrassing."

"Pfft, 'snot." Theo said through a mouthful of banana. "So, is he any good?"

"Who?" asked Harry, blushing.

"That good?" smirked Theo. "For some reason I always thought Malfoy'd be a bit of a disappointment you know, it's like a 'don't believe the hype' type thing. All the girls wanted up in his business at school, but I always suspected that the anticipation would have been the most exciting part with him ya know. Like once you've got him it's a bit... ehh." He said, making a gesture with his hands that seemed intended to convey a sense of general averageness.

"There was nothing 'ehh' about it. It was one hell of a kiss Theo. God." Harry said.

"I can see that." Theo replied. "Push all the right buttons huh? Did he do the do that he do do so well?"

"Oh my gods, shut up you ridiculous moron."

"Harry got kiss-ssed," Theo sang under his breathe as he went back about scraping a sample from beneath the Jane Doe's fingernails. "And Harr-rry liked it." 

 They spent the last few hours of work carefully documenting the Jane Doe case, Theo had concluded correctly that the girl was a witch, and had simply never received formal training, thus she had never turned up on any official ministry records, it wasn't that she had no magic, or was muggle, it was simply that the girl didn't have enough magical power, genetic or otherwise, to have been recognised in any official capacity, especially when born to muggle parents who knew nothing of the wizarding world. It was a mutation that appeared more and more frequently, dalliances that led to accidental pregnancies and babies with varying degrees of magical ability were common in a post-pure world. 

"How'd she get a dark mark though?" 

Theo snorted. "That's the funny part actually," he began. "It's not actually a dark mark."

"What?" said Harry, startled and staring at the ominous serpentine symbol that stood out against the girls freckled forearm. "What do you mean."

"Well, here's the thing." he said. "It's not even a wizarding tattoo is it? I tested the ink and it's one of them decorative muggle pieces. Completely random."

"That's one hell of a coincidence Theo, it's even in the right spot."

Theo nodded his head carefully. "Yeah, considered that. I think she must have seen one like it and just thought it looked cool. Wriggle looked into her history, she had no idea what she was- so it's decorative for sure. No dark trace at all."

"Merlin. One hell of a way to get decorative."

"Yeah- well, we have to hand her over to the muggles now. Wriggle's reorganising the crime scene, we'll be putting her back out this afternoon and calling up Scotland Yard."

Theo looked excited, and on any other day Harry would have been too. He supposed it was a little sick that they both got so much amusement out of the unusual cases, but whatever, the war had given people worse complexes. 

"Actually Theo, I've got some research to do at home. Can you cover for me?" he asked winningly. 

Theo's head snapped up, a fantastic frown painting his face. "You are a worm Harry Potter. An absolute worm. What are you even researching that I don't know about?"

"You won't like it." Harry warned. "It's probably best I don't tell you."

"Like you ever tell me shit. Mister Enigma everybody." 

"It's about Ron."

"Oh. Well," Theo said, sounding strained. "Good luck. Many happy returns."

"Don't pull a muscle trying to be nice." Harry said. "Not on my account."

"Yeah, yeah. Go home Potter." Theo replied, waving him away.

Harry gathered all of his things, of which there were few since the confiscation of his bag, and again made his way up to the atrium. 

He had a conversation with Merv on the way up about the increasingly terrible state of the world and half hoped he wouldn't run in to Draco Malfoy.

He fully hoped that he would.

When he arrived home there was a note from Hermione waiting for him, she would be staying late at work but would help him research later, he sighed, and made his way up to the library. Using one of Hermione's favourite charms he summoned several books by topic. Seconds later they came flying out of the shelves from all directions and organised themselves by alphabet into three daunting, precarious piles on one of the desks. 

"Right," Harry said to no one in particular, grabbing the first one off the pile as he slumped down into one of the couches and adjusted the brightness of the lamp. "Let's get started."

 

 

It happened hours later, midnight oil burning low, Harry Potter was carefully scanning the pages of an indistinctive black book, title; _Black History of the Pure Family Magic_. No author was named. It happened, as Harry's weary eyes passed over the final, dark sentences of chapter six. And there was his answer. Harry Potter jumped up from his chair with excitement and shock and victory that night, for the first time in a long time, he knew exactly what he was required to do. He would need Hermione, she'd know best how that kind of magic worked, but first, well, first he had to figure out a way to break into the ministry holding cells.

He hoped with all his fervour that Draco Malfoy was a far sight more forgiving than he looked. 

 

Outside, and completely beyond Harry's line of vision in the dark, a leaf from his favourite oak fell to the ground. It darkened quickly, it's edges withering and curling in on themselves in an atavistic imitation of autumnal death before forming a cocoon. The leaf shuddered with magic once, twice, three times, before cracking open to reveal a tiny bird, shivering in the cold. It flexed it's left wing carefully, with the air of one who had suffered a painful injury, before stretching both of it's wings out to their fullest span and taking off, ecstatic, into the night.

If one were to ask Albanus Malfoy his opinion of the mysterious events, he would likely have said that he remembered the fragile thing well, and probably that Draco would have been pleased.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always these characters and settings are owned by J.K Rowling, a slew of publishing companies and a bunch of hollywood types. Thankyou for reading. Peace out.
> 
> Soundtrack, if you like that sort of thing.
> 
>  
> 
> [Aquarium by Saint-Saens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVpl-RNzdE4)  
> [Scheherezade Op.35, Lento Adagio by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibNZ4nxYL_s)
> 
>  
> 
> These are two of the pieces I listened to frequently during the writing of this story and many of the themes and events in the fic were inspired by the emotions these two pieces of music had the ability to wring from me. Would also recommend any and all music written by Dario Marianelli.


	3. Meeting The Maker

**WORM FOOD**

 

o O o  

 

CHAPTER THREE- Meeting The Maker

 

 

It was lucky that the next day did not bring forth anything more unusual than your typical AK victim and one clumsy auror with a broken wrist. It seemed that for now, the aurors and the criminals, had decided to give them a bit of respite, and this was a good thing, for Harry was so twitchy he didn't think he could have concentrated on anything complicated if he had tried. As it was he had been staring off into space for a few minutes before he realised that it wouldn't do to come across so nervous, not if he didn't want anyone to connect him with Ron's disappearance later this evening. 

In all honesty, Harry knew they were likely to connect the dots straight away. Draco Malfoy was no idiot, and all office jokes aside the auror's were not exactly lacking in intellect. That was why he was relying on the distraction of the ministerial museum opening. Even though his plan ran a high risk of him being caught, the ministry would be absolutely crawling with visitors, he didn't like his odds of succeeding when the ministry was largely empty and locked up tight with all of the proper wards. This way, he could rely on the protective wards being lowered at least a little so that guests could come and go, and the magical security not being as tight. The hardest part, he had decided, would be getting past the aurors undetected. 

"Almost time to pack up Potter, I want to be looking fine for tonight, did you know that Blaise Zabini is going to be there? And he always looks like a god, so-"

Harry found himself wishing he had a marauders map of the ministry, things would be ever so much simpler if he could simply see where everybody was located at all times, that way he could avoid any-

"Are you even listening? My god, where has your head been these past few days?" pouted Theo.

"Dunno." replied Harry astutely.

"You haven't heard a thing! I want to whine to you about the unfair perkiness of Blaise Zabini's bum and all you can do is daydream like-"

"What?" Harry asked, startled. "I'm sorry Theo, I'll explain it all eventually, when things aren't so confused."

"Yeah, well. You'd better." Theo replied with a frown. "Hey Harry?" he asked.

"What?"

"Be careful."

Harry looked up at Theo. There had been a time where the concept of friendship with a slytherin would have seemed laughable to him, maybe even impossible. He wasn't proud of that, but he had grown up. And because they had grown up, the roles that the war had cast them in had been abolished, making way for new relationships to be forged from the ashes. He was glad his friendship with Theo Nott had been one of them. He grinned.

"Always am."

 

 

When Harry arrived home that evening he went straight up to the library where Hermione was waiting.

"Are you ready?" he asked her. 

"More than." she replied. 

He looked at her, sitting on the floor, eyes weary and sunken, surrounded by even more piles of books than Harry had gathered himself the prior night and still wearing a pleasant grin. 

"Are we actually going to do this?" she asked, gesturing towards the ritual equipment she had somehow procured.

"We're doing it." he replied firmly. "If your still okay with everything?"

She looked up at him, and there was a steely determination to her gaze. 

"If there is even the slightest chance that this could work, that the old Ron will come back to us, then I'm all in." she said. "Besides, it's rather like the olden days isn't it?"

They grinned at each other nostalgically for a moment, before Hermione caught sight of the time on her watch.

"Harry! The time, we need to start getting ready."

"Right, of course." 

"Oh, by the way, I went and found this old thing. Just in case." said Hermione, standing up. Her bones cracked audibly and Harry winced.

"That's disgusting." he said.

She popped all of her knuckles. 

"Is it?" she replied, smirking something feral. "I hadn't noticed."

Hermione walked over to the desk and opened the drawer, she rummaged around for a moment before pulling out the small, magical bag they had used when they were horcrux hunting. 

"It's small enough that you'll be able to store everything you need in there, without looking for all the world as though you are about to stage a jailbreak."

"It'll do nicely, shall I pack it now?"

"Already sorted. Unless you want to do inventory?"

For once, Harry found that he did indeed want to do inventory. The thought of failing this operation was too much to bear, the stakes, Ron's life, were simply too high. 

"You know, for once I actually do"

Hermione carefully emptied the bag's contents onto the couch, they methodically sorted through each and every item, making sure that Harry had easy access to all of them, and wouldn't struggle finding anything when the time came that he needed something. Invisibility cloak, 1 x Vial of Transmogrification Potion, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Transportable Ears, Extra Robes, and an assortment of other items that they had decided might come in handy, 'just in case'. 

The plan was simple and elegant, Harry liked to think that Ron would have been proud, even though he would likely have picked out the numerous flaws in it immediately.

He had always been the best strategist.

The plan, would hopefully play out thusly; Harry and Hermione would mingle for about half an hour at the party, make sure everyone knew they had been in attendance. Then, Harry would excuse himself. Using the invisibility cloak he would sneak down to the holding area and into Ron's cell. Quickly, stupefy Ron and force feed him the transmogrification potion. Hermione would use the Ears to communicate with Harry and keep him updated on where the aurors where, in particular where Malfoy was. 

Hopefully, she could keep them distracted long enough for Harry to sneak back up and leave peacefully with a disguised Ron in tow.

Just walk out, and hope that no one found it odd that he was leaving with a stranger rather than his date. Once he told Hermione that they had made it to the apparition point, she would also leave, they would return to Grimmauld, strengthen the wards, and perform the ritual. Simple. Elegant. Very probably likely to fail if even one variable changed. 

They finished going over their plans and both of them headed off to their individual rooms to get dressed for the evening. Hermione, though technically uninvited, would be attending as his plus one. When Harry reached his room he rummaged through his wardrobe until he found the outfit that Hermione had suggested he wear.

Dark grey slacks, in the muggle style, a white, collared, dress shirt and a silk suit vest with a classical floral print across the front in dark colours. It wasn't necessarily something he would have bought for himself, but when Hermione had shown it to him after her shopping spree, he had liked it oddly enough.

The outfit was both fashionable, and easy enough to escape in. Far better than a heavy set of dress robes.  

"You look good." He said to Hermione as they walk down the street towards the apparition point. 

She, like Harry, is wearing muggle styled clothing. A simple but elegant black dress that cinched at the waist and capped the shoulders. Her wild hair had been tamed and for once, hung straight down her back. She had large silver hoops in her ear lobes that matched the purse she was carrying. 

Inside the purse, Harry knew, were three bags of emergency Peruvian Darkness Powder and a knife. Hopefully, both were things that would remain in the purse for the duration of the evening. 

"Do you want to side-along?" Hermione asked when they reached the point.

"Yes, please." Harry nodded, extending his gloved arm towards her. 

"Hold on." she said with a grin. "This is going to be one hell of a ride."

Harry was quite sure, that as per usual, Hermione was correct.

 

 

If there was one thing Harry could say both confidently and positively about the ministry, it was that they sure knew how to throw a party.

And the opening of the ministry museum was one swanky affair. Harry knew from hearing office gossip that there were a lot of wizarding historians that would be milling about this evening, and a lot of big name ministry officials. Of course, of the record, most of them knew that the museum was less about having a building dedicated to remembering the wizarding worlds history, and more about slamming the idea that the ministry were an integral part of it, a fact that had Harry sipping into his expensive wine scornfully. He might even have snorted if it wouldn't have looked odd. 

Hermione was deep in discussion with one of the girls from potions research, but he knew from the way she kept glancing at her watch every so often that she was paying careful attention to the time and the people around her. 

"So, Potter." came a voice from behind him. 

"Malfoy." he greeted carefully. He hadn't spoken to the man since their romantic interlude in the bathroom the prior day, and Harry was no longer sure where exactly they stood.

"I came to offer you some wine," replied Draco. "But it looks as though you're all sorted on that front."

Harry looked up form his red to give Draco a once over. The man looked his very vogue best, in charcoal dress robes with pastel pink piping. Only Malfoy, Harry thought with a snort, could make such a dandy outfit look masculine. 

 The orchestra started up then, and for the third time, Draco Malfoy asked him for a dance. 

"I suppose." he agreed airily, heart beating fast.

He placed his wine glass off to a nearby waiter and followed Draco out onto the floor. 

Draco pulled him a little closer than was entirely appropriate and they began moving in slow circles.

Harry peered over Draco's shoulder, trying to spy Hermione in the crowd. 

There! She was by the fountain, chatting with Blaise Zabini. He could see Theo nearby, watching them with a glint in his eye.

Hermione spotted him looking and discreetly held up her hands in a pre-organised signal that indicated he would need to make his move in roughly twenty minutes. 

"Alright Potter?" Draco murmured in his ear.

"Mmm."

"You seem distracted."

"Hardly." he replied, trying to keep a nervous tremor from entering his tone. "Cool as a cucumber." 

Harry, after sneaking around so often as a child, had always been disappointed that he wasn't a very skilled liar. He remembered the 'Roonil Wazlib' incident with a shudder. 

"Am I making you nervous?" Draco asked.

Harry moved back a tiny bit, so that he could see Draco's face. They kept dancing. 

"Hardly." he repeated.

"I think I am." replied Draco, sounding smug.

If only you knew, thought Harry with some despair. 

Luckily, they were distracted from their conversation when a balding ministry official whirled past them.

"Faggots." the man muttered, voice low.

What a prick, thought Harry with some detachment. He'd gotten well used to public scrutiny over the years, he was almost at a point where it didn't bother him. After the war, the prophet had hounded after him, it seemed that nothing was off the record when it came to Harry Potter, eventually, he'd gotten over it. As a teen the rumours had enraged him, as an adult, he had a thicker skin and had developed more of a 'who even gives a crap' attitude.

Draco it seemed, did not feel inclined to ignore the insult. "Excuse me?" he asked, stepping away from Harry and turning to face the man.

"I didn't say anything." replied the old man, his eyes glinted maliciously.

"I think you should apologise to myself and my partner." 

Partner? Harry ignored the thrill that ran through him. Draco likely meant dance partners.

"I wouldn't apologise to a faggot." replied the man, it seemed that he had decided that he fancied an argument after all.

"Just leave it Malfoy." said Harry, staring at the man. "There's no sense in trying to argue with the senseless."

The man's ears turned purple, and he pulled out his wand, Harry rolled his eyes, and didn't bother to do the same. "Why you, filthy little cock sucker! I bet that-"

"Sir!" some other guest was saying, sounding incredibly scandalised. "You simply can't-"

The man it seemed, had been baited enough. 

And, more quickly than Harry would have thought possible, he lifted a pudgy arm in a zig zag motion and sent a small jet of red light sailing straight towards Harry's face.

Draco reached out just in time for it to miss Harry, but singe his hand. 

An auror, who had caught onto the commotion, quickly disarmed the man.

"You got this one Jenkins?" asked Draco in his authoritative head auror voice.

"Yessir." replied the young man with an enthusiastic salute and a node to Harry.

"You've got a burn." said Harry, looking down at the blistering palm Draco was cradling in his good hand.

"How very insightful Potter. I hadn't noticed."

Harry supposed that if Draco was well enough to snark, he couldn't be doing too badly.

Harry looked over at Hermione, who sent him another subtle signal. Ten minutes. He could risk it.

"Let's get you cleaned up." Harry said to Draco.

The tall man nodded and they headed towards the bathroom. While Draco inspected his hand, Harry whispered into the ear in his breast-pocket.

"I'll just heal his hand, then I'll go."

"What was that Potter?" asked Draco, looking up.

"Nothing."

 

They reached the bathroom and Harry held Draco's hand up to the light.

"It's just a burn." he said eventually. "Nothing else malicious and no nasty side effects."

Draco only nodded.

"Do you mind?" Harry asked, holding up his wand.

"Go ahead." replied Draco.

Harry caressed Draco's hand lightly, his thumb brushed against Draco's wrist and for a brief second, he swore he could feel Draco's heart beat.

 _"Curare."_ he said, and watched as a cool blue light washed over Draco's palm. 

The man sighed in relief as the skin paled and returned to normal.

"You may get some lingering pain for the next hour or so, but it shouldn't be too bad, I've got some healing potion you can have."

Draco nodded again.

"I swear you used to be a lot more verbose." Harry commented.

"I can't figure you out Potter, so I'm observing."

"Oh."

Harry rummaged through his purple bag, a bit of a risk really, and pulled out a green vial.

"Here." he said.

Draco took the vial in his uninjured hand and chugged it back in one swallow.

Harry determinedly did not watch Draco's throat muscles work as he did so.

One minute and he needed to leave.

"So..." Harry said.

"So what?" replied Draco.

"That was, erm, fun. But now, I think that we should perhaps-"

Draco cut him off with a searing kiss.

Shit. Shit. Shit. This was not a part of the plan.

Harry broke away and stepped back. 

"Maybe-"

Draco gripped his waist and pushed him up against the wall, he mouthed at Harry neck and Harry gasped.

"Maybe-" Harry tried again.

"Shut up Potter."

Draco was still sucking his neck something feral when Hermione burst in, Draco was too caught up to notice, but Harry, eyes panicked and ecstatic, held a silent conversation with his stricken friend, who stood frozen to the spot by the door.

His did a wandless leviosa, and the purple bag attached to his pocket, flew over to Hermione.

He knew that later he would be embarrassed that she had seen him like this, and that he had begged with his eyes for her to take his place, but he was hardly going to reject Draco, and, the more cunning part of his mind suggested; they couldn't have come up with a better diversion if they had tried.

Hermione nodded with innate understanding born of years of friendship and left the bathroom silently, shutting the door softly behind her. It glowed briefly, and Harry recognised it as a charm that would make the door unnoticeable to passers by.

They wouldn't be interrupted. 

"Draco." he moaned when the man licked at the sensitive valley between his neck and his jaw. 

Harry reached around and grabbed the mans arse, pulling his groin closer and into contact with Harry's very suddenly alert cock.

"Not here." Draco muttered.

"What?" replied Harry, dazed.

"Not here." repeated Draco, shuffling them into a cubicle and locking the door. "After all, we're not putting on a show. _Muffliato_."

Harry pulled at the buttons on Draco's shirt. 

"Don't tug." snapped Draco, batting his hands away. "This shirt was very expensive."

Harry rolled his eyes and attended to his own shirt, not even bothering with the buttons, he instead tugged the thing over his head and dropped it to the floor.

He watched then, with intense focus, as Draco slid his shirt slowly from his shoulders, revealing flawless, milky skin and pert, pink nipples. There was some wiry hair that speckled his chest and the light muscles in his abdomen flexed when he moved.

"C'mere." said Harry, enamoured.

Draco, not having to be told twice, slammed him up against the wall again.

"I think-" said Harry between pants. "That you have a bit of a wall kink."

"Whatever." kiss. "Do." lick. "You." squeeze. "Mean?"

"It's just, that you always seem to be slamming me up against them."

"You fault Potter." said Draco smoothly. In one movement the blonde sunk to his knees and nuzzled at Harry's groin. "It's the only way I can get you where I want."

He unzipped Harry's trousers and let them drop.

"You don't have to." Harry said.

"I do what I want." Draco replied, before sliding Harry's boxers down and taking Harry's cock into his mouth. 

Then Harry was lost. Lost in the warmth, lost in the heat, lost in the feeling that okay, maybe Draco Malfoy did like him, at least a little.

"Can we?" Draco muttered some time later.

He did not need to elaborate. Harry turned around unashamedly, his abdomen and his still hard cock pressed against the wall. 

Draco stood, and ran his hands up along Harry's sides. 

Without warning, he spread Harry's cheeks and pushed a lubed finger inside Harry's hole. 

“You’re so beautiful. So beautiful for me Potter. Look, all wet, and open, and fuck.” Draco said, voice hot on Harry’s neck.

He felt his skin shiver in pleasure and goosebumps rose up along his arms. He could feel Draco’s fingers pumping inside of him, curling and hitting that spot, over and over and, Harry moaned. “Draco,” he uttered the name like a prayer. “Draco, Draco.”

“What? What do you want?” came Draco’s reply. “How do you want?”

Harry was on fire, so alight that he could hardly formulate a response. “You,” was all he managed before Draco’s fingers curled just so and he bucked his hips, arching back into the sensation.

He was burning, surely he was burning he thought, as Draco continued to stretch him. Three fingers pushing in and out of him. He felt on the edge of collapse, every nerve was held taut at ecstatic attention, waiting for Draco to just do. “Draco, I’m ready. Just, I’m ready.” Draco said nothing in reply, merely kissed the back of Harry’s neck, sucking a little and then biting down in a way that Harry knew would purple him up later.

And then, and then! In one smooth motion Draco rocked his hips forward and slid in. And they were both lost, utterly rapturous in the simple pleasure of moving together, of the warmth between them, of words unspoken and yet wholly understood. When it was over Harry fell back against the wall panting.

He found that he was hyper aware of his surroundings, the rough texture of the wall, the warmth emanating from Draco's body, the boneless weight to his legs.

The cubicle was silent apart from their heavy breathing and he fancied he could feel Draco's come running down the inside of his thigh. For some reason, the thought made him grin. 

"I-" Harry began, but he was quickly cut off. 

The Transportable Ear that he had forgotten to silence began speaking from his shirt pocket, crumpled up on the ground. Hermione's voice came through, muffled but unmistakable.

"I've got him Harry. We're almost at the apparition point. Is the coast clear?"

Harry looked up at Draco with pained eyes, begging him to understand, but there was nothing he could do to shield himself from the wounded look that flickered across Draco's face in that moment. It had been a long time since he had seen Draco so raw. The expression was quickly masked by a blank, inscrutable expression. Draco was only given away by the slight tremor Harry could see in his hands. 

"So." Draco said, voice cold, and arctic crisp. His eyes burned like some unholy hellfire. "Harry Potter. Not above the rest of us at all. Of course, I knew that all along, but these are new lows of immorality even for you Potter."

"Draco, I'm sorry, I swear I didn't mean for-"

"Do not call me by my first name. We are professionals in our workplace and you will address me as such."

"Draco-" he was quelled by a furious look, and gulped. "Malfoy. Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry a thousand times, but Ron is not-"

"Weasley? This is about- You've taken Weasley. Right." 

Before Harry could stop him he had sent a patronus out to every auror in their vicinity. "Bring Hermione Granger in for questioning at any cost, she has escaped with the fugitive, Ronald Weasley."

"You can't!"

"I think you'll find I'm well within my rights Potter." Draco replied clinically. 

Harry made to move past him, Hermione couldn't get the wards up on Grimmauld properly without him. The whole plan was doomed if he couldn't get away, and Ron would never be returned to them. Draco blocked him. 

"You're not going anywhere Potter. Aiding and abetting a jailbreak is illegal."

"Malfoy, I swear to god you have no idea what-"

"What you can do? Oh I have a pretty good idea of that, you filthy liar. But you'll not leave here. I am going to ward you to this cubicle, I am going to arrest Granger and Weasel, and maybe then we'll chat, but for now I'll be leaving you-"

For the second time that night, they were interrupted by the ears, and Harry cursed himself for his own folly. 

"Harry!" came Hermione's desperate tone. "There are aurors outside! My wards aren't going to hold, you need to get here quick or-" 

She was cut off. 

Harry let out a sound between frustration and rage. Draco, realising that Hermione wouldn't be able to do anything until Harry reached her, made to move forward and restrain him, but Harry had experience in schoolyard scuffles, he remembered what it had felt like when one of Dudley's bigger friends had put him in a corner. He knew how to get rid of someone larger than he was. When Draco stepped forward he stepped into Harry's waiting knee, which planted itself firmly into Draco's groin.

Draco knelt over in pain. Before he did so however, Harry caught sight of Draco's eyes one last time, and though they had been filled with betrayal before, Harry could now recognise some final realisation and resignation there, a kind of closure that Harry wasn't sure they could get over. He felt awful, and hated himself, but not enough that he couldn't hurriedly unlock the cubicle and run away, shucking his pants up as he moved and cursing the fact that he had removed his shoes earlier as he slid around the hallway corners in his socks. 

He ran straight through the party without his shirt on, and several people gasped as he bumped into them.

"Is that Harry Potter!" he heard them exclaim. He prayed that there were no photographers around.

He ran down a corridor and found himself in the auror department, he must have made a wrong turn somewhere. 

He could hear Draco behind him now. The footsteps were heavy and gaining. He suspected that Draco with his long stride was a more powerful runner than he was, especially since Harry was hindered by his socks, but Harry was being fuelled by pure desperation at this point. He would not let harm come to Hermione or Ron. The adrenalin pushed him ever forward, the most important people were Ron and Hermione.

Maybe that would have changed one day, if he had had the chance to get to know Draco better, but as it were, the situation he found himself in now demanded that he help those who had been there for him since he was eleven. With one final burst of speed he lunged desperately inside the room closest to him, slamming the door shut behind him and quickly warding the parameter's. Not his strongest work, they would not hold for long, but he had bought himself some time to think. 

What to do? What to do?

He looked around and realised he was in Draco's office again. He could still hear Draco yelling at him from behind the door, but he had closed that side of his mind off, the side that cared deeply for Draco Malfoy. He needed to focus. 

Then he felt it, that semi-familiar tug at the hem of his pants. His back-pack! 

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, mounting his back pack for the second time, holding tight to the straps as it once more launched itself towards the chimney and shot itself up with top speed. 

Harry cast a powerful blasting charm up where the column thinned out and would have blocked their passage, it exploded with a downfall of rubble. Harry shielded his eyes and coughed, his back pack mewed, and he took note of the small rip before they burst out into the London sky.

"Higher!" he said to the bag. They needed to get above the wards so he could apparate them. The second they had passed the almost indiscernible barrier, Harry grinned breathlessly, waved his wand, and laughed as they disappeared with a pop.

 

When Harry landed in Grimmauld place, he landed in chaos. The walls were shuddering, Ron was unconscious on the library floor and Hermione was standing with her palms out, seemingly holding the protective enchantments in place. Her eyes were shut in concentration but Harry could see that she was struggling. He dropped the bag and quickly added his own magic to the wards. He could see Hermione relax minutely. 

There came another massive shudder, and for a moment Harry thought that the house might fall down. 

"Kreacher!" he called. The house elf appeared with a pop.

"Help us on the wards please."

The elf nodded, and Harry felt more than saw the burden lessen further. 

He channeled every bit of rage and frustration and anger he had felt that evening and across the past few weeks into one final protective layer, and it was a though an invisible brick wall slammed into place, surrounding the property and blocking every attack. It would hold, he was sure of it.

All three of them sighed with relief.

"Thankyou Kreacher." he said. 

"Your welcome. Kreacher is pleased to serve the house of Black, even if it is for Harry's filthy friends."

"You should never have taught him about sarcasm Hermione." Harry panted, still a little exhausted creating the ward. His energy felt almost completely drained and he knew that the adrenalin was slowly wearing off.

Hermione didn't reply, she was too busy lighting several ceremonial candles and drawing a large chalk circle upon the floor.

"Are we sure about this?" she asked a little while later.

"I'm about 99.9% certain Hermione." he replied.

She looked grim for a moment, and her eyes flitted across Ron's unconscious figure with something akin to sorrow.

"Good." she replied with more resolve than Harry could have mustered. "Let's do it."

 

Harry thought back to when he had broken his theory to her, the idea that perhaps Ginny's death had not been all that it seemed, the idea that perhaps, lovely, fierce Ginny, had been taken by something far more sinister than a difficult birth, the idea that perhaps Ron had been afflicted by that same malicious force.

It was a good thing Eliot Musgrave had died when he had, otherwise Harry doubted he would ever have thought to research into hereditary curses. 

"Haven't you ever wondered," Harry had started. "How a pureblood family with zero prejudice, have somehow stayed pureblooded all of this time?" 

Hermione had looked thoughtful. "They haven't, Fleur is not technically a pureblood, she has veela ancestry."

"I considered that, I think it's because while veela's have different magic to witches and wizards, she is, in essence, still magical. The Weasley curse is geared specifically towards warding of non-magical off-spring."

"It could be chance." Hermione suggested.

"There's no such thing as chance." Harry had replied. "I've been doing some reading, and the Weasley family have been regarded as blood traitors for almost two centuries now, it's what started their blood feud with the Malfoy's you know, and yet despite that, not one line of their pedigree has descended into half-bloodedness. Not one."

Harry showed her the chapter about hereditary curses then, and told her about how Eliot musgrave's overzealous ancestor had cursed his own line with instant death if one of them consorted with a person of impure blood.

"Then why isn't Ronald dead?" she had asked, a blush lighting her cheeks. "It's not as though we never-err."

"-Yes, well. I think it may be that the curse is less extreme. Something that only intervenes when it looks as though the bloodlines might suffer. So, a Weasley could have dalliances, but anything that looked like it might result in, err impurities, would have it's consequences, so like-"

"Ginny and her baby," Hermione had replied wonderingly. "And Ron being serious about me."

Harry paused then, somewhat awkwardly, and prayed he wasn't wrong.

"Exactly." he agreed. 

"Harry," she said. "That still doesn't explain how he's come back so many times. It's dark magic, and it's powerful."

He looked at her carefully, for the smartest witch of their generation she would be somewhat dense when it came to herself.

"Hermione, what has been the one thing that kept me alive with Voldemort all those years? The one thing that made it so I was protected and able to keep him out of my mind? The one thing that can defeat dark magic?"

"Oh. Do you really think so?" Hermione had asked. 

Harry nodded.

"Love." she whispered. "Only love."

 

"Are we ready?" Harry asked.

"Yes, let's put him in." Hermione replied.

They dragged Ron's dead-weight body into the centre of the chalk circle and spread his arms and legs so that they reached the outline at four contact points.

"Stand by his right hand." Hermione said.

"Why?" asked Harry.

"It's part of the ritual, there's a long winded explanation I can put you through later but for now just do it."

Harry obliging did so.

"Now," said Hermione, standing by Ron's left foot with eyes glued to her book. "Whatever happens, neither of us can enter the circle. At any cost."

"Alright."

"Any cost." Hermione repeated.

"Alright." said Harry with a little frustration.

"Shall we begin."

"Yes."

As it turned out the first section of the ritual entailed a very intense meditation. And so Harry stood, and let the magical trance take him.

He was eleven, and smiling at his first friend. He was fifteen, and staying back for extra quidditch training so that Ron could get on the team. He was seventeen, and Ron had come back. He was twenty, and having tall, menacing friends to scare away the homophobes wasn't necessary, but it was nice. He was Harry Potter, and he was Ronald Weasley's best friend.

"Feed the circle a memory." called Hermione across the circle after an indefinable amount of time.

She herself was already pulling a silver string from her temple and holding it out for the magic to take.

Harry watched in fascination as the memory floated slowly about the circle like a feather falling to the ground before landing on Ron's chest, glowing once, and then somehow being absorbed by his body.

Harry thought about nights spent in the gryffindor dorm, when the other boys had gotten too loud and so he and Ron had crawled out of the window and sat on the roof, talking about things that Harry couldn't quite remember.

He pulled the silver strand from his own temple and held it out.

The strand floated down just as slowly as Hermione's had, before landing on Ron's arm and being absorbed the same way.

"Next?" Harry asked.

"Blood." said Hermione.

Harry grimaced, but pulled out the small silver scalpel Hermione had warned him to have in his pocket.

He looked over at Hermione, who held a dagger poised at her wrist, and nodded once.

Harry slashed a shallow cut in the pale flesh of his arm and let three drops fall into the circle. 

He looked up again abruptly when he heard Hermione curse.

"What?" he asked.

But he needn't have, her arm was covered in blood, and the slice in her arm was seeping.

"I was shaking too much!" she cried, gripping her wrist with her spare hand to keep the cut closed.

"Hermione, I think you've nicked a vein."

"I bloody well know I've nicked a vein," she snapped. "But we've got to finish this."

Harry deliberated for a moment. Hermione was losing blood very quickly, it was probable that she had actually sliced one of the arteries. 

"Alright. Last step?"

Hermione nodded, letting go of her wrist and holding her hands out across the divide. Harry grasped them in his own and made sure that he didn't accidentally step inside. 

They began chanting in a long slew of latin that they had memorised the night before. 

Mid-way through, Harry heard an explosion from outside. He made worried eye contact with Hermione, but did not cease the chant.

" _Reddite ei. Reddite ei. Reddite ei_."

Return him.

" _Frater meus_." said Harry.

My brother.

" _Dilectum meum._ " said Hermione.

My lover.

" _Ligabis ad eum nos._ "

Tie him to us again.

The loudest explosion of them all shook the very foundations of Grimmauld just as the two finished the chant and stood back, panting.

There were foot-steps running somewhere downstairs.

"It's not working!" Hermione exclaimed desperately. "I don't understand."

Fuck, thought Harry desperately. How could it not be working?

Hermione, who had been strong throughout the entire ordeal, let out an anguished sob, one without tears but so full of grief that Harry's heart ached.

If only he could-

Wait. 

"Death?" he cried. "Death? Come back! Come back please!"

There was no answer. But for once, Harry was so out of his mind that he didn't care what he did, so long as they could get Ron back.

 _It's about intent_ , he remembered Death saying, _it's about your thoughts and desires_.

Harry remembered as many things as he could about Ron then, all of the things that made Ron his best friend, and all of the things he knew that had made Hermione fall in love with him. Then he channeled that warmth and _wished_. 

He wished with all of his might, he wished with everything in him. 

He felt a massive well of power surge within him, and for a moment, Harry felt as though he were on a precipice, or a ledge, and that he could fall off at any moment.

But then the moment passed, and Harry was stood once more, in his library, with Hermione standing across from him, and Ron lying inanimate in the middle of the circle.

It hadn't worked then, Harry fell onto the couch and shut his eyes despairingly. The footsteps in the hall grew louder.

"Harry!" cried Hermione, with awe and disbelief filling her tone.

Harry opened his eyes and looked down at Ron.

"Hermione? Harry?" said Ron blearily, blinking up at them from the floor, there was something kind in his eyes, something Harry hadn't seen for a long time and had forgotten about.

Harry grinned.

The door slammed open, and Draco Malfoy stood glaring down at them all. "Potter." he spat.

Harry wasn't sure wether or not to be overjoyed or dismayed.

 

It took nearly a week for the whole thing to get sorted out. 

The wizengamot had needed to do a review once they found out how high profile those involved were, and how important the work they did for the ministry was.

Eventually, Ron was cleared of all charges. 

His actions had not been his own, and the ministry had allowed the unspeakables to meet with every member of his family to remove the curse.

Hermione had been able to return to work at the university with a fine and a warning.

Harry suspected that they had gotten off lightly due to their status, but he wasn't about to complain.

According to the wizengamot they had broken almost thirty two laws.

"That's a new record isn't it." Hermione had whispered to him when they were finally able to leave the hearing.

Harry tried for a smile. "Next time, we aim for thirty three." he joked. 

A balding man he recognised vaguely as the homophobe from the ministerial museum opening, sneered at them as he walked past.

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him as he walked away, and in that moment, Harry was more grateful for friendship than ever.

 

It wasn't until they returned to Grimmauld with Ron in tow that Harry was able to fully realise the consequences that he would face.

A month long suspension from the ministry was tough to bear, but tougher still, was radio silence from one Draco Malfoy.

He hadn't wanted to hurt the man. Harry had fancied himself in love with him for years after all, but they had had closer contact these past few weeks, and Harry had gotten to know and like him better than ever.

The separation hurt, even though it was Harry's fault for being deceptive and breaking Draco's trust.

 _"You are in pain, young dodger._ " came the voice of Death.

"You're back then?" replied Harry rolling over to face the shadowy figure.

 _"I never really left."_ said Death, sitting down in the rocking chair by Harry's window. _"You used your new magic, to save that boy."_

"I know." replied Harry with a frown. "I'm still waiting for the fallout."

 _"That,"_ said Death with a sigh. _"Is because you fear has blinded you, and you do not understand._ "

"Oh." sighed Harry. "I think I'm finally ready to."

 _"I'm glad."_ rattled Death. _"And I think that you know now, that just because you have some darkness in you, it doesn't mean that you are inherently dark. We are all creatures of shadow and light. It is a fragile balance."_

"I suppose." replied Harry.

"You suppose? Boy, you have been using the magic inadvertently for good for a long time now. Do you think all garden bloom as your does, do you think all bags come to life because of simple levitation charms? No. That's new magic."

When he actually considered it, Harry supposed that it was rather unusual for two amateur gardeners to have a backyard that bloomed all year round. And the bag, well. The bag thing had always been odd. 

The back-pack in question snuffled, and curled up closer over Harry's feet.

Harry stared at the ceiling and contemplated this. He supposed, that he had already known that dark magic didn't make a wizard evil, but after the war, and after the death of Tom Riddle, he had not wanted to be even remotely involved in anything that could be related to his enemy. He had recognised the similarities between himself and Voldemort long ago, and there had always been a deep-seated fear in him that he could go the same way.

"This is true." he agreed. "And I'm sorry for kicking you out."

_"That is okay young dodger. That is okay. As long as you are ready to learn from me, I think everything will work out fine."_

Harry snorted. "I've ruined things with Draco though. It's been such a mess. No dating, bathroom sex, deception. It's a lost cause."

_"Ahh, fear again. You thought it was a lost cause before it even began. Try something, what more do you have to lose?"_

My job and my dignity thought Harry dejectedly. Probably my heart too.

_"Just think about it young dodger."_

And, as Harry drifted off to sleep that night, he did. 

He hadn't wanted something as much as he wanted Draco Malfoy in a long time- and perhaps it was time he did something about it.

"Thanks Death." Harry murmured before he finally drifted off.

 _"You're welcome Harry."_ Death replied with a small smile, you're always welcome.

 

The next day, Harry's first day of ministerial suspension, dawned bright and cheerful. 

Harry wandered downstairs to the smell of bacon burning. His back-pack yipped cheerfully at his heels as he walked down the carpeted hallway.

"Shit." he said upon entering the kitchen. 

Hermione and Ron broke apart blushing.

"Not that." he said. "Although, gross. It's that." he said, pointing towards the bacon that was, once again, being cooked on a bunsen burner.

"It's on fire Hermione!" he said plaintively. "You need to accept that cooking is the one thing you can't do."

"Never." refused Hermione, sounding disgruntled.

Harry raised his eyebrows pointedly, and then put the fire out with an augmenti. 

"Let the professionals handle it." he said, pushing them both out of the kitchen, and going about cooking up the best fry up he could manage. 

Ron and Hermione set the table outside and Harry tried his diligent best to ignore how soppy they were being. He wouldn't begrudge them, after all, so much time had been taken from them already, years in fact. Still, he imagined that this was what it felt like for children to realise that their parents had sex.

Unsettling at the very least, disturbing at the very best.

He focused on the bacon.

"Is it nearly ready mate?" he heard Ron call from outside some time later. 

By god, Harry had missed that friendly tone.

"Yeah, help me carry it all out."

And so, Ron learnt of Hermione and Harry's breakfast tradition. As they sat down to eat, the garden seemed lovelier than ever. The flowers were more vibrant, and the trees more luscious. Harry couldn't imagine why, if the garden was supposed to be some reflection of how he felt on the inside, then nature clearly wasn't very good at representing abject misery.

"Oh Harry." sighed Hermione, catching sight of his suddenly dark expression. "It's about Draco isn't it."

Harry leaned back on his chair and shut his eyes. "Lately, it always seems to be, doesn't it?"

"Well," said Ron sagely. "That's love isn't it."

Hermione and Harry stared at him in surprise.

"That's very mature Ronald." Hermione said at the same time Harry asked. "You're _not_ freaking out about me and Malfoy?"

"Always the tone of surprise." Ron muttered. "And to be honest, I thought it would happen a lot sooner than this."

"What!?" exclaimed Harry.

"Like, in school." supplied Ron. "You were both always... looking at each other. It was very uggh, mind you. Put a bloke right off his breakfast, staring like that."

Hermione honest to god giggled.

"It'll work out Harry, you'll see." she assured.

"Hermione," replied Harry, anguished. "I don't think it will. That night, we- in the bathroom. He thinks I was only with him so we could help Ron. He thinks I was lying."

Surprisingly it was Ron who came through with the advice.

"Just means," he mused. "That you've got to set him straight."

 

Harry drafted nearly one hundred letters before he realised that some things were better said in person. 

It took another ten minutes before he realised that he wasn't allowed inside the ministry, and had no idea where Draco lived. 

He'd either have to wait an entire month, or just write a damn letter.

Neither of these options appealed to him, if he waited too long it could be too late, and letters had always seemed impersonal to him, he wouldn't be able to watch Draco's expression when he read it, and if Draco chose not to reply, Harry would be left in suspense. Wondering wether or not Draco had forgiven him or burnt it up before he even glanced at the contents. 

A knock on the door startled him from his revery. 

"Master Harry." said Kreacher, popping into the room with a loud crack. "You're friend, Mr Nott, is at the door, he's looking most agitated sir. Kreacher suggests purple hyacinth."

"Alright, can you pick me some? and get a white ribbon?"

Kreacher disappeared for a moment, but soon returned with a large handful of flowers and a roll of ribbon.

Harry tied them together at the stems carefully. He wasn't completely sure a bouquet was going to cut it this time.

Theo knocked at the door again, loudly.

Harry rushed down the stairs with the bouquet and opened the big, black door carefully.

Theo Nott stood upon his step, looking quite put out and wearing bar clothes. 

"You're here?" asked Harry, a little dumbly. 

Truth was, he had forgotten that he needed to explain things to Theo, with everything that had been going on, and with Ron back to normal, his friend and his work had not been at the fore-front of his mind.

"It's Wednesday you great butthead. Of course I'm here." snapped Theo.

"Even though I got suspended?"

"Especially because you got suspended. I can't yell at you from my place." said Theo. "Lucky for you, I have more exciting news than your misdeeds."

"Oh?" asked Harry curiously. "What's happened?"

"I'll tell you once we hit the bar."

"Alright, just let me get changed." Harry agreed. "These are for you." he thrust the bouquet into Theo's pleased arms, turned around and ran back up the stairs to his room.

Harry dressed quickly into a pair of black jeans that he suspected may have already been dirty and his Nirvana t-shirt.

They apparated to their usual place, and then ordered very manly beers before Harry looked at Theo seriously and asked. "Alright, enough with the suspense, what's up?"

Theo grinned, and inspected his black fingernails. 

"I hooked up with Zabini." he replied, self-satisfied grin well in place.

"You did not!" exclaimed Harry.

Blaise Zabini had been Theo's most long-standing crush. Since they were eleven or something.

"Was it all you dreamed it would be." asked Harry teasingly.

"And more, we're getting married tomorrow." Theo said promptly. "D'you wanna be my best man? Bear in mind that you owe me, and if you say no I will likely feed your cock to an alligator."

"What! Yes. What the fuck Theo? You're getting married?" asked Harry, shock colouring his tone.

"Tomorrow." replied Theo sagely. He leaned forward on the bar and had a sip of his beer through the pink straw he had requested. 

"Wow. I can't believe it. Theo the eternal bachelor, finally tying the Nott."

"Oh my Merlin, please stop yourself." giggled Theo. "So, best man?"

"Of course." replied Harry with an easy grin. "Of course."

"Also, I asked Hermione a few days ago if we could have it in your back yard, is that okay?"

"Yes, fine, wonderful!"

"If you had said no, we would have done it anyway I hope you know."

Harry rolled his eyes, oh yes, he knew very damn well.

"One more thing..." Theo trailed off, his eyes had gone a little unsure in the dim light of the pub.

"What is it?" asked Harry worriedly.

"Draco Malfoy will be there."

There was a pause.

"Oh." said Harry. "Well, I want to talk to him anyway." 

"Hmm, rumour has it that he does not want to talk to you."

"Rumour has it?" asked Harry. "How much do people know?"

"Not anything too detailed." Theo assured. "Only that you two were seen dancing, and next thing anyone knows, you've stolen a prisoner from right under his nose."

"Okay." said Harry, that's not as bad as it could be.

"Everyone thinks it's fine anyway. Once it all came out about the hereditary stuff, people have been saying you were quite noble."

Harry snorted in disgust.

"Figures." he said. "I wasn't noble in the least."

"That bad huh?" 

"Gods Theo, you have no idea. I think I've really stuffed it this time."

"Well, stop your moping, if you want it fixed you either do something about it, or rely on unhealthy casual sex to ward off your soul-crushing loneliness. That works a treat, take it from someone who knows."

Harry laughed despite himself. "Sounds good to me Theo. While I'm at it I might adopt a kneazle or ten."

"That's the spirit!" said Theo, clapping a hand to Harry's back. "Here, have another drink, this is technically my bucks night you know."

Harry ordered another round, and as the evening wore on, the both of them grew steadily drunker.

"Hees-sssssooo fab'lous." said Theo. "And soooo 'talian, and hansom 'n stuff."

"Well, Draco's prettier, like- like, like an angel or somfin!"

"Podda!" slurred Theo. "We gotta, make, a pact." 

Theo held up his right hand, as though he were about to make an oath. 

"Okay." agreed Harry. "Whad about?"

The bar tender, standing a few metres away and pretending not to eaves-drop, rolled his eyes and continued wiping glasses. 

"True love!" shouted Theo.

The bar fell silent for a briefly awkward second as everyone turned to face them. 

"True love." whispered Theo.

"Kay." agreed Harry, again.

"Tomorrow, I, Theo Nott, will marry mine, and you Harry Podda, will _tell_ yoursss!"

They shook hands solemnly. 

"Home time?" Harry asked Theo seriously.

"Home time." Theo agreed.

They stumbled out of the bar and walked around the block to Theo's flat, which was closest.

"G'night Podda." mumbled Theo as he stumbled off to his bedroom.

Harry smiled a drunken smile and sunk into the weird shag carpet Theo had gotten last year. 

He knew, vaguely, that his neck would regret it in the morning, and that the couch was only a metre away, but it was just, so, soft...

 

"Potter." 

Harry came to slowly.

"Potter." the voice repeated.

Harry groaned and opened his eyes. 

Blaise Zabini was staring down at him with the most unimpressed expression Harry had seen since that time Hermione caught him trying to study for his healer exams via osmosis. 

"Zabini?" Harry croaked, sitting up. His stomach lurched. "Where's Nott."

Zabini smiled a little. "In his room. I'm not meant to have looked at him, don't tell." 

"You're getting married!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.

"Yes. Now you need to get up, and get your act together, and make sure my fiancee makes it to the altar. Alright Potter?"

Harry nodded. "I'll do a fry up. They're the best hangover food."

"Sounds good, just make sure you get there on time, sound fair?" 

Harry nodded. "What time is it anyway?"

"Five. Tell Hermione she can bring Weasley will you?"

"Alright." agreed Harry, standing. "Will do."

He stretched, walked over to the kitchen, and began rummaging through the refrigerator for something edible he could cook.

"And Potter," Blaise said. Harry looked up. "Don't fuck it up with Draco tonight, I don't think I could deal with the bitching."

Blaise left then, and Harry stood slack-jawed for a moment before he started on the eggs. 

Why did everyone know about him and Draco?

 

 

It was a beautiful ceremony, the small group of people Blaise and Theo had invited were all saying so.

They had enough shade from the massive oaks that they hadn't needed a marquee, and come nightfall, Harry knew the whole place would be lit up with the fairy lights Hermione had set up earlier, they'd also enlarged the lounge room for dancing in case it got too cold.

The flowers looked brighter and bigger than ever, and there were some lovely blue-bells over by the altar that had grown roughly to the size of a human head.

"It all looks great." said Theo.

He and Harry were standing in the kitchen, looking out the window and waiting for the music to start.

" _You_ look great." Harry complimented.

And Theo did, he was wearing some midnight blue robes with silver lining that accentuated his slim frame and brought out his eyes. 

"Blaise is very lucky." 

Theo smiled. "Yes he is."

Harry grinned. "Your ego truly knows no bounds."

"And that's the way it should be."

They waited for a few more minutes in silence, and then the cello started up. Luna was a close friend of Blaise's and had agreed to do the music during the ceremony.

"We're on!" exclaimed Harry.

"Wait," said Theo. "Just, thanks. You're my best friend. I'm glad you're giving me away, and I'm really pleased you've let us have it here. It's perfect."

Harry nodded. Over the years Theo had become one if his best friends too, they hadn't shared adventures like he and Ron had, but they understood each other.

"And Harry, remember our pact." he said.

Then they walked out.

Theo positively strutted down the aisle, and all of their friends and Blaise's mother oohed and ahhed when they caught sight of his robes.

Harry followed along a little more sedately. The rings were still safe in his pocket thank god.

He came to stand behind Theo and the wedding began.

"And do you Blaise Zabini, swear on high magic and on earth, that you shall live and love by this man for the entirety of you life." asked the officiate.

"I so swear." said Zabini.

"And do you Theodore Alexus Gregorian Nott, swear on high magic and on earth, that you shall live and love by this man for the entirety of you life."

"I so swear." replied Theo.

"You may now-"

Harry laughed as Theo practically jumped Zabini's bones, only after the officiators disgruntled coughing fit, did the two take a break from what was some truly indecent snogging. 

Harry caught sudden sight of Draco Malfoy in the audience. He was sitting next to Zabini's mother, laughing at something she had said, and looking more beautiful than anyone Harry had ever seen before.

White robes this time, completely traditional, with silver embroidery and a high collar.  

He paused mid-laugh when he noticed Harry staring at him. 

His expression went blank and Harry hated himself again.

 

Harry spent the reception trying to work up the courage to speak to Draco. A part of him, a self-preserving part that Harry didn't particularly want to acknowledge, was hoping that Draco would approach him, and they could have it out without Harry having to put his heart on the line.

His more rational side, the side that knew the advice he had received in the past few days from Death, and Ron, and Hermione, and Theo, and hell, even Blaise, made sense. He would have to sacrifice something of himself tonight if he ever wanted Draco to consider him again.

He went to the kitchen where they had made a makeshift bar and poured himself a shot of fire-whiskey before heading back out to the garden. 

"Aren't the flowers lovely." came a voice behind him.

"Oh, hi Luna." said Harry, turning to greet the airy woman. "Yeah, I guess they are."

"It must be the right time." she said. 

"For what?" asked Harry.

"Growing, and change too. All of the Warbling Snafu-howzers have been."

"You know," said Harry consideringly. "You're exactly right. I might see you later, Luna. I've got to do something."

Harry kissed Luna on the cheek and went back inside to find Draco.

 

The man in question was in the lounge-room. They had enlarged it temporarily and several people were with their partners, swaying around the floor clumsily and having fun. 

Theo and Blaise were dancing so close together that Harry wasn't sure where one of them began and the other ended.

Ron was standing tall on the couch, singing the lyrics to the song loudly and obnoxiously, that was okay however, because Hermione was laughing at him from the dance floor, where she was swaying around with Zabini's mother, and no one seemed to mind that he was largely off-tune. 

Harry looked around further.

Draco was leaning against the wall by the window, nursing his drink, and mercifully alone.

Harry downed his fire whiskey, wiped his mouth, and approached.

"Care for a dance Malfoy." he asked lightly.

Draco snorted. "I don't think so Potter."

"A drink then?" he offered.

"An apology," suggested Draco. "An explanation?" 

"I could do those." Harry replied quietly.

Draco looked at him then, carefully, assessing.

"Alright." he replied, tone guarded. "Not here though."

They walked back downstairs in uncomfortable silence, and Harry tried not to watch Draco from the corner of his eyes. 

This would have been rather easier, he thought, if Draco hadn't been so striking. They wandered out into the garden, Harry led Draco around the back to his pond. It was night-time by now, and so the lilies had closed up. The moon was very bright, and luckily they could still see each other clearly.

Draco's pale eyes were intense and accusing in the silver light.

Everything Harry had been planning to say dried up on his tongue.

"Well," said Draco. "Talk Potter."

Don't come on too strong Potter, Harry thought to himself, don't ruin it.

"I love you." Harry replied hurriedly. "I really love you, and even though I don't think I've shown it very well, I think you should know that I do. I didn't mean for you to think that I didn't care, and it was horrible, what I did, I shouldn't have let it continue when we were doing what we were, but I couldn't stop and I just. I just- love you."

"Potter-"

"Don't interrupt me please, I know I haven't been very gryffindor about much of anything lately, a lot of things have had me running scared, like the way I feel about you, and other things, and just. I don't know, I'm trying to be brave and I really hope you still like me, at least a little, and that's- well, that's it I guess."

"Potter, we hardly know each other. We've had sex once, that doesn't make us star crossed lovers." 

"I know." said Harry in a small voice. "I know there's no logic to it. It's just how I feel."

"Well, I don't love you-" 

Harry slumped.

"Oh for gods sake Potter, I don't love you, but," Draco groaned frustratedly, and it seemed for a moment that he might struggle to get the words out. "You drive me utterly mad, and utterly jealous, and utterly endeared. I'm very angry with you, but, I wouldn't say no."

"What?" asked Harry, dazed.

"I wouldn't say no. Merlin Potter. Ask me on a date you toss-pot, we need to rewind and go about things like normal people."

"Oh," said Harry. "Will you go on a date with me?"

"No." replied Draco succinctly.

"But-"

"I'll think about it."

"You just said-" Harry started, indignant. 

"Well, as it turns out, I'm angrier than I thought." said Draco, reaching out and grabbing Harry's hand.

"Okay." replied Harry, a little consoled by the warm hand caressing his. "I guess, I deserve it."

"You do." agreed Draco pleasantly, looking out over the pond.

"Do you think, that maybe with time, it'll be okay?"

"I don't know Potter, the best any of us can do is wait and see."

"I guess," said Harry thoughtfully. "That that's okay too."

"Well, I'm glad. " Draco snorted. "We'll be having some lengthy discussions about your treachery later you do know, very, very lengthy." 

"I can live with that." said Harry. 

"You really kicked me in the pride you know. People are talking about how capable I am as head auror again, they seem to think I should have realised that Weasley was innocent without you having to jailbreak him."

"Oh." replied Harry. He hadn't thought about that, about what their daring rescues could have done to Draco's reputation as a good leader.

"There's other things I want to know Potter." said Draco.

"Like what?"

"Like... why you always wear gloves but don't have eczema, and about why I always see you talking to yourself, there's something very suspicious about that by the way." Draco looked at him intently.

"Okay." Harry agreed with a laugh. That was going to be a long conversation.

"You think that's all? I want to know what on earth is going on with that menace backpack of yours, and how on earth you managed to sneak out of my office, and a whole host of other things! I want to know everything about you Potter. Every secret, and every other hidden thing."

"That can be arranged, Draco." Harry murmured, leaning in and pressing his face to Draco's neck. He closed his eyes. It would be okay. He could feel that now.

Draco's expression softened, and he ran a hand carefully through Harry's hair.

"Harry." he said softly, like a prayer. "You're an idiot."

"Draco." Harry replied, like a promise. 

And so, on a Thursday evening, after a lovely wedding, in a beautiful garden; two men sat, and the flowers bloomed ever brighter, and a small bird was born from a kiss.

It flew away on fragile wings, and was as free and alive and arresting as Harry and Draco and Draco and Harry. 

 

 _Ah_ , mused Death from somewhere far away, _isn't life a funny thing._

 

**Author's Note:**

> The characters in this story are owned by J.K Rowling, a group of various publishing agencies, and some movie people. Thankyou for reading, I hope you have enjoyed this yarn o mine.


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